Burned Bridges - Bertrand W. Sinclair (best ereader for academics txt) 📗
- Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair
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Treacherous Sea Which Had Swallowed The _Roland_. It Lay Like A
Chapter 10 (The World Is Small) Pg 84Wave-Tossing Heaven Under The Steamer, And Gave It A Gentle Rocking
Motion, By No Means Unpleasant. There Was Majesty In The Course Of Even
The Plain Little Trader, Painted Black Above The Water-Line And Red
Below. Compared With That Mechanical Marvel, The _Roland_, It Was Like
A Comfortable Old Stage-Coach, And Could Be Depended Upon To Make Its
Ten Knots An Hour With A Great Show Of Speed. Captain Butor In All
Seriousness Declared The Castaways Had Brought Him Good Luck. The Moment
They Appeared, The Old Man Of The Sea Turned As Peaceful And Serene As An
Octogenarian English Rector.
"Yes," Said Stoss, "But Your Old English Rector First Filled His Belly
With A Few Hecatombs Of Human Lives. Stop, Look, Listen! Don't Be Too
Quick To Trust Him. When He's Done Assimilating, He'll Have A Still
Better Appetite."
Up To The Very End Of The Trip, Though There Was A Corpse On Board And
The Woman From The Steerage Was Still Very Sick, The Atmosphere On The
_Hamburg_ Lost None Of Its Festal Character. The Bridge Was Free
Territory. Ingigerd Was Usually To Be Seen There In The Daytime Playing
Chess With Wendler, Or Looking On While Frederick Won One Game After The
Other From The Engineer. Naturally Enough, The Entire Crew, By No Means
Exclusive Of Captain Butor, Felt Profound Satisfaction Because Of The
Booty They Had Recovered On The High Seas, Each Wearing An Air Of Evident
Pride In The Catch. Had The Exalted Feelings That Swelled The Hearts Of
All On Board The Gallant Freight Coach, The _Hamburg_, Been Transferred
Into Od-Rays, The Steamer Would Have Sailed Up New York Harbour
Surrounded, Even At High Noon, By An Aureole Of Its Own Radiance.
There Was Betting As To The Number Of The Pilot-Boat That Would Come To
Meet The _Hamburg_, When Suddenly It Appeared Hard By, With The Number
"25" Decipherable On Its Sail. Arthur Stoss Had Won. Almost Choking With
Laughter, He Raked In A Considerable Sum, And Jacob Fleischmann Envied
Him With Comically Obvious Greed.
The Close Companionship With His Fellow-Passengers On The Small Steamer,
The Compulsion He Was Under To Listen To Their Jokes And To The
Superficial, Reiterated Tale Of The Disaster Made Frederick Inwardly
Impatient. Unlike The Others, He Had Not Yet Recovered His Old Relation
To Life. His Soul Was Numbed. He Had Lost His Feeling For The Past, His
Feeling For The Future, Even His Passion For Ingigerd. The Moment Of The
Catastrophe Seemed To Have Snapped All The Threads That Bound Him To The
Events, Men, And Things Of His Former Life. Whenever He Looked Upon
Ingigerd, He Felt An Oppressive Consciousness Of Responsibility. In These
Days It Almost Seemed As If The Girl In Her Predominatingly Soft, Serious
Mood Were Awaiting The Declaration Of His Love.
"You All Want To Have Fun With Me," She Once Said, "But Nobody Wants
Anything Serious Of Me."
Frederick Did Not Understand Himself. Hahlstroem Was No Longer Living,
Achleitner Had Had To Pay The Penalty Of His Undignified, Dog-Like Love,
And The Girl, Shaken And Refined To The Depths Of Her Being, Was Wax In
His Hands. Often He Would Look At Her To Find That Her Eyes Had Been
Fixed Upon Him In A Long, Grave, Meditative Gaze. Then He Would Seem To
Chapter 10 (The World Is Small) Pg 85Himself A Very Sorry Sort Of Person, And Was Compelled To Admit That He
Who Had Once Wished To Overwhelm The Girl With The Infinite Riches Of A
Passionately Loving Soul, Was A Bankrupt, Groping With Empty Hands In
Empty Pockets. He Ought To Speak, Ought To Open The Sluices On The Other
Side Of Which The Flood Of His Passionate Love Must Have Gathered And
Risen High; But All The Waters Had Trickled Away,Aa Grievance, A Theory, Or
Even Merely The Gift Of Gab Might Air His Views And Be Reasonably Sure
Of An Audience. In The Evening There Was Always A Crowd. Street Fakirs
Plied Their Traffic Under Sputtering Gas Torches, Dispensing, Along With
A Ready Flow Of Glib Chatter, Marvellous Ointments, Cure-Alls, Soap,
Suspenders, Cheap Safety Razors, Anything That Would Coax Stray Dimes
And Quarters From The Crowd.
But The Street Fakirs Were In The Minority. The Percentage Of Gullible
Ones Was Small. Mostly It Was A Place Of Oratory, The Haunt Of
Propagandists. Thompson Listened To Social Democrats, Social Laborites,
Syndicalists, Radicals, Revolutionaries, Philosophical Anarchists, Men
With Social And Economic Theories Of The Extremist Type. But They Talked
Well. They Had A Grasp Of Their Subject. They Had On Tap Tremendous
Quantities Of All Sorts Of Knowledge. The Very Extent Of Their
Vocabulary Amazed Thompson. He Heard Scientific And Historical
Authorities Quoted And Disputed, Listened To Arguments Waged On Every
Sort Of Ground--From Biological Complexities Which He Could Not
Understand To Agricultural Statistics Which He Understood Still Less. A
Lot Of It Perplexed And Irritated Him, Because The Terminology Was Over
His Head. And The Fact That He Could Not Follow These Men In Full
Intellectual Flight Spurred Him To Find The Truth Or Falsity Of Those
Things For Himself. He Got An Inkling Of The Economic Problems That
Afflict Society. He Found Himself Assenting Offhand To The Reasonable
Theorem That A Man Who Produced Wealth Was Entitled To What He
Produced. He Listened To Many A Wordy Debate In Which The Theory Of
Evolution Was Opposed To The Seven-Day Creation. There Was Thus Revived
In Him Some Of Those Troublesome Perplexities Which Sam And Sophie Carr
Had First Aroused.
In The End, Lacking Profitable Employment And Growing Dubious Of
Obtaining It During The Slack Industrial Season Which Then Hovered Over
California, He Turned To The Serried Shelves Of The City Library. Once
Started Along This Road He Became An Habitue, Spending In A Particular
Chair At A Certain Table Anywhere From Three To Six Hours A Day, Deep In
A Book, Not To Be Deterred Therefrom By The Usual Series Of Mental
Shocks Which A Man, Full-Fed All His Life On Conventions And Dogmas And
Superficial Thinking, Gets When He First Goes Seriously And Critically
Into The Fields Of Scientific Conclusions.
He Was Seated At A Reading Table One Afternoon, Nursing His Chin In One
Hand, Deep In A Volume Of Huxley's "Lectures And Essays" Which Was
Making A Profound Impression Upon Him Through Its Twin Merits Of Simple,
Concise Language And Breadth Of Vision. There Was In It A Rational
Explanation Of Certain Elementary Processes Which To Thompson Had Never
Been Accounted For Save By Means Of The Supernatural, The Mysterious,
The Inexplicable. Huxley Was Merely Sharpening A Function Of His Mind
Which Had Been Dormant Until He Ran Amuck Among The Books. He Began To
Perceive Order In The Universe And All That It Contained, That Natural
Phenomena Could Be Interpreted By A Study Of Nature, That There Was
Chapter 10 (The World Is Small) Pg 86Something More Than A Name In Geology. And He Was So Immersed In What
He Read, In The Printed Page And The Inevitable Speculations That Arose
In His Mind As He Conned It, That He Was Only Subconsciously Aware Of A
Woman Passing His Seat.
Slowly, As A Man Roused From Deep Sleep Looks About Him For The Cause Of
Dimly Heard Noises, So Now Thompson's Eyes Lifted From His Book, And,
With His Mind Still Half Upon The Last Sentence Read, His Gaze Followed
The Girl Now Some Forty Feet Distant In The Long, Quiet Room.
There Was No Valid Reason Why The Rustle Of A Woman's Skirt In Passing,
The Faint Suggestion Of Some Delicate Perfume, Should Have Focussed His
Attention. He Saw Scores Of Women And Girls In The Library Every Day. He
Passed Thousands On The Streets. This One, Now, Upon Whom He Gazed With
A Detached Interest, Was Like Many Others, A Girl Of Medium Height,
Slender, Well-Dressed.
That Was All--Until She Paused At A Desk To Have Speech With A Library
Assistant. She Turned Then So That Her Face Was In Profile, So That A
Gleam Of Hair Showed Under A Wide Leghorn Hat. And Thompson Thought
There Could Scarcely Be Two Women In The World With Quite So Marvellous
A Similarity Of Face And Figure And Coloring, Nor With Quite The Same
Contour Of Chin And Cheek, Nor The Same Thick Hair, Yellow Like The
Husks Of Ripe Corn Or A Willow Leaf In The Autumn. He Was Just As Sure
That By Some Strange Chance Sophie Carr Stood At That Desk As He Was
Sure Of Himself Sitting In An Oak Chair At A Reading Table. And He Rose
Impulsively To Go To Her.
She Turned Away In The Same Instant And Walked Quickly Down A Passage
Between The Rows Of Shelved Books. Thompson Could Not Drive Himself To
Hurry, Nor To Call. He Was Sure--Yet Not Too Sure. He Hated To Make
Himself Appear Ridiculous. Nor Was He Overconfident That If It Were
Indeed Sophie Carr She Would Be Either Pleased Or Willing To Renew Their
Old Intimacy. And So, Lagging Faint-Heartedly, He Lost Her In The Maze
Of Books.
But He Did Not Quite Give Up. He Was On The Second Floor. The Windows On
A Certain Side Overlooked The Main Entrance. He Surmised That She Would
Be Leaving. So He Crossed To A Window That Gave On The Library Entrance
And Waited For An Eternity It Seemed, But In Reality A Scant Five
Minutes, Before He Caught Sight Of A Mauve Suit On The Broad Steps.
Looking From Above He Could Be Less Sure Than When She Stood At The
Desk. But The Girl Halted At The Foot Of The Steps And Standing By A Red
Roadster Turned To Look Up At The Library Building. The Sun Fell Full
Upon Her Upturned Face. The Distance Was One Easily To Be Spanned By
Eyes As Keen As His. Thompson Was No Longer Uncertain. He Was Suddenly,
Acutely Unhappy. The Old Ghosts Which He Had Thought Well Laid Were
Walking, Rattling Their Dry Bones Forlornly In His Ears.
Sophie Got Into The Machine. The Red Roadster Slid Off With Gears
Singing Their Metallic Song As She Shifted Through To High. Thompson
Watched It Turn A Corner, And Went Back To His Table With A Mind Past
All Possibility Of Concentrating Upon Anything Between The Covers Of A
Book. He Put The Volume Back On Its Shelf At Last And Went Out To Walk
The Streets In Aimless, Restless Fashion, Full Of Vivid, Painful
Memories,
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