The Sword and the Net полностью

He faced it—and was none the better. His mind raced, and doubled upon its tracks and raced again. And there seemed no goal reached or reachable. But the thought was still there—and the fact and truth of the thought: he had been trumpeting truth while so blinded that he had thought himself vomiting falsehood. And the last of his lies had pierced through his own mind and impaled him like a collector’s moth—“. . . to keep the right to think as they think, not as other people tell them they must think!”

That was true. There was no escape: it was true. Men, to be higher than the animals, must think their own thoughts, and out of their collective thought must inevitably come, in the last analysis, the only form of rule which was right. Two and two make four. Ice freezes and fire burns. The only ruler of any grouping of men must be the Highest Common Factor of all the minds in that grouping, not an arbitrary algebraic symbol which poses itself as the master of other minds. Black is black and white unalterably white—and Truth, even when disguised as falsity, must always be Truth. . . .

His mind raced—and he groaned and twisted his body about until his legs hurt in the clumsy casts and he was drenched with sweat. His mind raced—and brought no solution of the appalling problem which was facing him. . . .

Clare came into the room.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you think I was never coming?”

And then she saw his face, and the lightness went from her voice and she stood looking down at him with shocked and anxious eyes.

He was going to speak—but she moved, going away from him towards the wall-cupboard where were kept all the paraphernalia of nursing. He turned his head to watch her and the grace of her body and movement brought a swift constriction to his throat. She wore a long dress of some filmy, glittering stuff which was blue and silver and floated about her.

She came back to the bedside and moved the chair closer and sat in it and leaned towards him. Against the gleaming stuff of the dress her neck and shoulders glowed softly. There was a little shining metal case between her fingers and she was unscrewing its cap. She said:

“If you have any fever, we must call the doctor. At once. I’m worried about you.”

He would not let her finish. He caught at her hand and she stared at him suddenly with wide eyes which were afraid.

She set the thermometer down upon the low table and looked carefully at what she was doing.

He said: “Please, we should talk about us . . .” and was interrupted.

“No,” she said. “No!” She did not struggle to free the hand but let it lie still in his. She said:

“It’s . . . it’s too soon?”

He suddenly knew that his grip was too tight upon her fingers and relaxed it. He stared at her in silence. She raised her head and looked at him but not into his eyes. She said, very low:

“Don’t you understand? It’s too soon to talk. I . . . I’m not lying—or being evasive—or being . . . being . . .” Her voice broke a little. She said:

“I’m not evading! But it’s too soon!”

He felt a sudden but more peaceful weakness. He said at last:

“I understand,” and laid his head back upon the pillow and closed his eyes.

After a while she moved her hand, gently and experimentally, and he let his open, lax and inert. He breathed deeply and turned his head away from her so that his face was m shadow. There was no sound or movement for a long time, but he went on feigning sleep. . . .

She was gone—and he did not have to pretend any longer.

He found passivity unendurable and reached out to the bedside table for matches and a cigarette.

The tobacco tasted bitter and unpleasing, but he smoked determinedly. He must not sleep—and he dared not yet let his mind go racing again around the mad whirligig of his dilemma.

He thought of Clare—and had reached a sort of desperately excited peace when he stumbled, unaware, over a memory. The sweat burst out cold upon his forehead and he sat suddenly and violently upright.

He had discovered why the date—the newly found and realizable date of the month—had filled him this morning with formless foreboding.

It was the date of the fifth ‘attack’ in Altinger’s chain! And, by this time, it was already fact—and the giant unbelievable fires were leaping up to the sky unquenchable, and in the hell around their feet were the charred and twisted and crumbling remains of men’s work and minds and bodies, of men’s women and children and little homes. . . .

Outside the windows, the velvet, silver-shot blackness began to thin: it grew grey and the silver paled to blend with the greyness and lose its beauty. There were faint stirrings in the trees and a sudden pre-dawn chill was in the air.