Ball and the Cross (eBook)

G. K. Chesterton (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
422 Seiten
Seltzer Books (Verlag)
978-1-4553-5665-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Classic novel. According to Wikipedia: 'Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the 'prince of paradox.'[1] He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: 'Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.'[2] He is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. Chesterton's own theological and political views were far too nuanced to fit comfortably under the 'liberal' or 'conservative' banner.'

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Classic novel. According to Wikipedia: "e;Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "e;prince of paradox."e;[1] He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "e;Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."e;[2] He is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. Chesterton's own theological and political views were far too nuanced to fit comfortably under the "e;liberal"e; or "e;conservative"e; banner."e;

Textauszug

X. THE SWORDS REJOINED

 

As they came over the hill and down on the other side of it, it is not too much to say that the whole universe of God opened over them and under them, like a thing unfolding to five times its size.  Almost under their feet opened the enormous sea, at the bottom of a steep valley which fell down into a bay; and the sea under their feet blazed at them almost as lustrous and almost as empty as the sky.  The sunrise opened above them like some cosmic explosion, shining and shattering and yet silent; as if the world were blown to pieces without a sound.  Round the rays of the victorious sun swept a sort of rainbow of confused and conquered colours--brown and blue and green and flaming rose-colour; as though gold were driving before it all the colours of the world. The lines of the landscape down which they sped, were the simple, strict, yet swerving, lines of a rushing river; so that it was almost as if they were being sucked down in a huge still whirlpool.  Turnbull had some such feeling, for he spoke for the first time for many hours.

 

"If we go down at this rate we shall be over the sea cliff," he said.

 

"How glorious!" said MacIan.

 

When, however, they had come into the wide hollow at the bottom of that landslide, the car took a calm and graceful curve along the side of the sea, melted into the fringe of a few trees, and quietly, yet astonishingly, stopped.  A belated light was burning in the broad morning in the window of a sort of lodge- or gate-keepers' cottage; and the girl stood up in the car and turned her splendid face to the sun.

 

Evan seemed startled by the stillness, like one who had been born amid sound and speed.  He wavered on his long legs as he stood up; he pulled himself together, and the only consequence was that he trembled from head to foot.  Turnbull had already opened the door on his side and jumped out.

 

The moment he had done so the strange young woman had one more mad movement, and deliberately drove the car a few yards farther. Then she got out with an almost cruel coolness and began pulling off her long gloves and almost whistling.

 

"You can leave me here," she said, quite casually, as if they had met five minutes before.  "That is the lodge of my father's place. Please come in, if you like--but I understood that you had some business."

 

Evan looked at that lifted face and found it merely lovely; he was far too much of a fool to see that it was working with a final fatigue and that its austerity was agony.  He was even fool enough to ask it a question.  "Why did you save us?" he said, quite humbly.

 

The girl tore off one of her gloves, as if she were tearing off her hand.  "Oh, I don't know," she said, bitterly.  "Now I come to think of it, I can't imagine."

 

Evan's thoughts, that had been piled up to the morning star, abruptly let him down with a crash into the very cellars of the emotional universe.  He remained in a stunned silence for a long time; and that, if he had only known, was the wisest thing that he could possibly do at the moment.

 

Indeed, the silence and the sunrise had their healing effect, for when the extraordinary lady spoke again, her tone was more friendly and apologetic.  "I'm not really ungrateful," she said; "it was very good of you to save me from those men."

 

"But why?" repeated the obstinate and dazed MacIan, "why did you save us from the other men?  I mean the policemen?"

 

The girl's great brown eyes were lit up with a flash that was at once final desperation and the loosening of some private and passionate reserve.

 

"Oh, God knows!" she cried.  "God knows that if there is a God He has turned His big back on everything.  God knows I have had no pleasure in my life, though I am pretty and young and father has plenty of money.  And then people come and tell me that I ought to do things and I do them and it's all drivel.  They want you to do work among the poor; which means reading Ruskin and feeling self-righteous in the best room in a poor tenement.  Or to help some cause or other, which always means bundling people out of crooked houses, in which they've always lived, into straight houses, in which they often die.  And all the time you have inside only the horrid irony of your own empty head and empty heart.  I am to give to the unfortunate, when my whole misfortune is that I have nothing to give.  I am to teach, when I believe nothing at all that I was taught.  I am to save the children from death, and I am not even certain that I should not be better dead.  I suppose if I actually saw a child drowning I should save it.  But that would be from the same motive from which I have saved you, or destroyed you, whichever it is that I have done."

 

"What was the motive?" asked Evan, in a low voice.

 

"My motive is too big for my mind," answered the girl.

 

Then, after a pause, as she stared with a rising colour at the glittering sea, she said: "It can't be described, and yet I am trying to describe it.  It seems to me not only that I am unhappy, but that there is no way of being happy.  Father is not happy, though he is a Member of Parliament----"  She paused a moment and added with a ghost of a smile: "Nor Aunt Mabel, though a man from India has told her the secret of all creeds.  But I may be wrong; there may be a way out.  And for one stark, insane second, I felt that, after all, you had got the way out and that was why the world hated you.  You see, if there were a way out, it would be sure to be something that looked very queer."

 

Evan put his hand to his forehead and began stumblingly: "Yes, I suppose we do seem----"

 

"Oh, yes, you look queer enough," she said, with ringing sincerity.  "You'll be all the better for a wash and brush up."

 

"You forget our business, madam," said Evan, in a shaking voice; "we have no concern but to kill each other."

 

"Well, I shouldn't be killed looking like that if I were you," she replied, with inhuman honesty.

 

Evan stood and rolled his eyes in masculine bewilderment. Then came the final change in this Proteus, and she put out both her hands for an instant and said in a low tone on which he lived for days and nights:

 

"Don't you understand that I did not dare to stop you?  What you are doing is so mad that it may be quite true.  Somehow one can never really manage to be an atheist."

 

Turnbull stood staring at the sea; but his shoulders showed that he heard, and after one minute he turned his head.  But the girl had only brushed Evan's hand with hers and had fled up the dark alley by the lodge gate.

 

Evan stood rooted upon the road, literally like some heavy statue hewn there in the age of the Druids.  It seemed impossible that he should ever move.  Turnbull grew restless with this rigidity, and at last, after calling his companion twice or thrice, went up and clapped him impatiently on one of his big shoulders.  Evan winced and leapt away from him with a repulsion which was not the hate of an unclean thing nor the dread of a dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and separation from something from which he was now sundered as by the sword of God.  He did not hate the atheist; it is possible that he loved him.  But Turnbull was now something more dreadful than an enemy: he was a thing sealed and devoted--a thing now hopelessly doomed to be either a corpse or an executioner.

 

"What is the matter with you?" asked Turnbull, with his hearty hand still in the air; and yet he knew more about it than his innocent action would allow.

 

"James," said Evan, speaking like one under strong bodily pain, "I asked for God's answer and I have got it--got it in my vitals. He knows how weak I am, and that I might forget the peril of the faith, forget the face of Our Lady--yes, even with your blow upon her cheek.  But the honour of this earth has just this about it, that it can make a man's heart like iron.  I am from the Lords of the Isles and I dare not be a mere deserter.  Therefore, God has tied me by the chain of my worldly place and word, and there is nothing but fighting now."

 

"I think I understand you," said Turnbull, "but you say everything tail foremost."

 

"She wants us to do it," said Evan, in a voice crushed with passion.  "She has hurt herself so that we might do it.  She has left her good name and her good sleep and all her habits and dignity flung away on the other side of England in the hope that she may hear of us and that we have broken some hole into heaven."

 

"I thought I knew what you mean," said Turnbull, biting his beard; "it does seem as if we ought to do something after all she has done this night."

 

"I never liked you so much before," said MacIan, in bitter sorrow.

 

As he spoke, three solemn footmen came out of the lodge gate and assembled to assist the chauffeur to his room.  The mere...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-4553-5665-4 / 1455356654
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4553-5665-2 / 9781455356652