The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton (best novels to read for beginners .txt) ๐
Description
Sometimes described as thrilling, sometimes as comic, and sometimes as metaphysical or spiritual, The Man Who Was Thursday is perhaps a little of each. The tale begins when an undercover policeman infiltrates a mysterious Anarchist group. As the novel progresses, things become more comic and improbable, and eventually evolve in to a sort of abstract, dreamlike state. Filled with Christian allegory, Thursday is a glittering, fascinating exploration of good versus evil and theology through the lens of adventure, wit, and the surreal.
Read free book ยซThe Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton (best novels to read for beginners .txt) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: G. K. Chesterton
Read book online ยซThe Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton (best novels to read for beginners .txt) ๐ยป. Author - G. K. Chesterton
โPaรฏens ont tort et Chrรฉtiens ont droit.โ
which in the old nasal French has the clang and groan of great iron. This liberation of his spirit from the load of his weakness went with a quite clear decision to embrace death. If the people of the barrel-organ could keep their old-world obligations, so could he. This very pride in keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death.
The conspirators were already filing through the open window and into the rooms behind. Syme went last, outwardly calm, but with all his brain and body throbbing with romantic rhythm. The President led them down an irregular side stair, such as might be used by servants, and into a dim, cold, empty room, with a table and benches, like an abandoned boardroom. When they were all in, he closed and locked the door.
The first to speak was Gogol, the irreconcilable, who seemed bursting with inarticulate grievance.
โZso! Zso!โ he cried, with an obscure excitement, his heavy Polish accent becoming almost impenetrable. โYou zay you nod โide. You zay you show himselves. It is all nuzzinks. Ven you vant talk importance you run yourselves in a dark box!โ
The President seemed to take the foreignerโs incoherent satire with entire good humour.
โYou canโt get hold of it yet, Gogol,โ he said in a fatherly way. โWhen once they have heard us talking nonsense on that balcony they will not care where we go afterwards. If we had come here first, we should have had the whole staff at the keyhole. You donโt seem to know anything about mankind.โ
โI die for zem,โ cried the Pole in thick excitement, โand I slay zare oppressors. I care not for these games of gonzealment. I would zmite ze tyrant in ze open square.โ
โI see, I see,โ said the President, nodding kindly as he seated himself at the top of a long table. โYou die for mankind first, and then you get up and smite their oppressors. So thatโs all right. And now may I ask you to control your beautiful sentiments, and sit down with the other gentlemen at this table. For the first time this morning something intelligent is going to be said.โ
Syme, with the perturbed promptitude he had shown since the original summons, sat down first. Gogol sat down last, grumbling in his brown beard about gombromise. No one except Syme seemed to have any notion of the blow that was about to fall. As for him, he had merely the feeling of a man mounting the scaffold with the intention, at any rate, of making a good speech.
โComrades,โ said the President, suddenly rising, โwe have spun out this farce long enough. I have called you down here to tell you something so simple and shocking that even the waiters upstairs (long inured to our levities) might hear some new seriousness in my voice. Comrades, we were discussing plans and naming places. I propose, before saying anything else, that those plans and places should not be voted by this meeting, but should be left wholly in the control of some one reliable member. I suggest Comrade Saturday, Dr. Bull.โ
They all stared at him; then they all started in their seats, for the next words, though not loud, had a living and sensational emphasis. Sunday struck the table.
โNot one word more about the plans and places must be said at this meeting. Not one tiny detail more about what we mean to do must be mentioned in this company.โ
Sunday had spent his life in astonishing his followers; but it seemed as if he had never really astonished them until now. They all moved feverishly in their seats, except Syme. He sat stiff in his, with his hand in his pocket, and on the handle of his loaded revolver. When the attack on him came he would sell his life dear. He would find out at least if the President was mortal.
Sunday went on smoothlyโ โ
โYou will probably understand that there is only one possible motive for forbidding free speech at this festival of freedom. Strangers overhearing us matters nothing. They assume that we are joking. But what would matter, even unto death, is this, that there should be one actually among us who is not of us, who knows our grave purpose, but does not share it, whoโ โโ
The Secretary screamed out suddenly like a woman.
โIt canโt be!โ he cried, leaping. โThere canโtโ โโ
The
Comments (0)