登陆注册
5271200000004

第4章 FILMER(4)

So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely in the rear. The grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, speculative expression at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still beautiful, in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty years, the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the camera that was in the act of snapping them all.

So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, they are very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business one is necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling at the time? How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present inside that very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and more expensive papers alike, and acknowledged by the whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age." He had invented a practicable flying machine, and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized model was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it--everybody in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't a gap anywhere in that serried front of anticipation--that he would proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly.

But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is.

We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been drifting about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from a little note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia, we have the soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights, --the idea that it would be after all, in spite of his theoretical security, an abominably sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous thing for him to flap about in nothingness a thousand feet or so in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early in the period of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the vision of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength of that horror there remains now not a particle of doubt.

Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered.

But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression to it until the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from Banghurst's magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, and wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat, enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy.

After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model had failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, or he had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop.

At any rate, it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little too steeply as the archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation for all the world like an archbishop in a book, and it came down in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude astonished, then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was incidentally killed.

Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up and stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him.

His long, white hands still gripped his useless apparatus.

The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop.

Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down.

Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had vanished, or rushing into the house.

The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this. Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said MacAndrew. "He's perfectly well advised."

And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through the skies.

同类推荐
  • 征南录

    征南录

    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。
  • 古方汇精

    古方汇精

    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。
  • 与胡居士皆病寄此诗

    与胡居士皆病寄此诗

    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。
  • 袁督师诗集

    袁督师诗集

    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。
  • 竹西花事小录

    竹西花事小录

    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
  • 梦游书生之重生王朝

    梦游书生之重生王朝

    只为足够拥有你便许诺给你一个重生王朝!那种逆天的命运,就算是粉身碎骨地去活,也会因为有你的存在而变的天真烂漫如此记忆,那又是过了几生几世………………一次次的追寻,了断前程的夙愿,如果可以,请容许我再一次与你相逢,共谱一生一世!
  • 男神天降:溺宠丫头无极限

    男神天降:溺宠丫头无极限

    【皇上万福:极宠仙妃】新书,请大家多多支持,不甚感谢!天上神仙下凡历劫到她家?身怀绝技,长相妖孽,且看她如何蹂躏他。哦,不,某女流着口水反驳,不是蹂躏是打造。天定情缘,从此内有柔情,外有颜值的神仙便是她家的。被人欺负,他挡!被人算计,他护!他赚了钱,她花!他成巨星,她在!送别墅,送飞机,送海岛……“这次你打算送什么?”某女期待。“不如……包子如何?”嘴角微扬,欺身而上。群号【104264237】,欢迎进入,么么哒
  • 不娇不惯培养优秀女孩100招

    不娇不惯培养优秀女孩100招

    “让孩子吃点苦,他会倍感生活的甘甜。让孩子享受在风吹雨淋中搏击的快乐,让孩子在生活的磨砺中不断地成长。从长远利益考虑,让孩子从小适度地知道一点忧愁,品尝一点磨难,并非坏事,这对培养孩子的承受力和意志,对孩子的健康成长或许更有好处。每个对孩子将来负责的父母应该牢牢记住这个很重要的育儿原则——替孩子们做他们能做的事,是对他积极性的最大打击。父母溺爱和娇惯孩子,满足他们的任性要求,他们就会堕落,成为意志薄弱、自私自利的人。因此,父母的爱不应该是盲目的……”
  • 恋樱超大牌男仆

    恋樱超大牌男仆

    撒谎是会付出惨痛代价的,虚荣少女丁笑笑因为一张偷拍照片,竟然就可以成为校园美少年俞牧辰的女朋友?不不不,不要想得太天真了!俞牧辰这个超级腹黑变态狂,人前装好人晒恩爱,人后却把她当成一只狗!可怜的笑笑每天生活在美少年可怕的魔掌之下,还要被无数粉丝追杀,简直生不如死啊!不打倒大魔王,丁笑笑誓不为人!《恋樱超大牌男仆》中少女的血泪逆袭,教你如何收服恶魔主人,成为贴心小男仆!
  • 末日之役

    末日之役

    这个世界,是末日之后的世界,机器智能已经把这个世界统治,人类苟活在机械的圈养之中。是谜团,机械人究竟是被谁所制造?是死亡,人类的文明遭到了灭世的危机,人类将何去何从?是疑惑,十年前,百年前究竟发生了什么?所有的路交汇到2204年,在这个未来的时代,一个带有身世谜团的孩子,带来了新的世纪。他带来的新世纪,是毁灭,还是地球文明的再生?
  • 藏书纪事诗

    藏书纪事诗

    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。
  • 无神之空

    无神之空

    ”这世间哪有那么多的童话,多半都只存在于幻想里。神的时代即将迎来终结,玛雅人从来都没有算错,世界末日来了,只不过不是人类的,是神的。我们即将迎来一个,无神的时代。”
  • 大沩五峰学禅师语录

    大沩五峰学禅师语录

    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。
  • 名人传记丛书:毕加索

    名人传记丛书:毕加索

    名人传记丛书——毕加索——女人们造就的绘画大师:“立足课本,超越课堂”,以提高中小学生的综合素质为目的,让中小学生从课内受益到课外,是一生的良师益友。
  • 我寻天道

    我寻天道

    封印万年的上古魔兽欲破印而出,世代看守凶兽的神族已无力镇压,魔君趁势席卷人间妄图称尊人魔两界。然而,神界之中却不见天帝踪影,六界无人知晓其行踪。如此残局,茫茫天道,谁主浮沉?北寒之巅,两位少年被一神秘老者收养二十年。老者有句口头禅,“二十年游历天下,九百年参天大道”。这是一个六界林立的世界,人皇、仙尊、冥王、魔君、天帝、妖皇那个不是一方霸主!可那又如何,且看小爷如何逍遥六界!