The Man Who Was Thursday : A Nightmare

by G. K. Chesterton Narrated by Thomas Pontings

Overview

Chesterton's finest achievement-at once a gripping thriller and a powerful allegory

In a colorful neighborhood of West London, two poets are at each other's throats. Gregory is an anarchist who longs to upend civilization with the power of his words, while Syme is a man of reason, convinced his opponent's beliefs are nothing but a fashionable pose. To prove his seriousness, Gregory introduces Syme to the central council of European radicals, where the newcomer is given the codename “Thursday.” Though none will admit it, every man in the council is a liar-and each is deadly in his own way.

 

Gregory has no inkling that his new comrade Syme is an undercover detective, sent by Scotland Yard to destroy the council from within. But as the other men reveal their secrets in turn, it becomes clear that Thursday is not the enemy; it is the mysterious figure named Sunday whom they all should fear.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173256201
Publisher:	VR Publications
Publication date:	07/05/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Two Poets of Saffron Park

The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its skyline was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the brainchild of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne vintage, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described with some fairness as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual center were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were indisputable.

The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit into them. Nor when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a delusion but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not "artists," the whole populace was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face — that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat — that venerable humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others. That scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological creature could he have discovered more remarkable than himself? Thus, the whole place had to be properly regarded; it had to be considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail yet finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a scripted comedy.

This attractive unreality especially fell upon it about nightfall, when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow of sunset and the whole insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This was more true of the many nights of local festivity, when the little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit.

And this was most true of all on one particular evening, still vaguely remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the hero.

It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights, those passing by his little back garden might hear his high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking.

And Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really a man worth listening to, even if one only laughed at the end of what he said. He gave the old speech of the lawlessness of art and the art of lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness which gave at least momentary pleasure. He was helped in some degree by the arresting oddity of his appearance, which he worked for all it was worth. His dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a woman's, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a pre-Raphaelite picture. From within this almost saintly oval frame, however, his face projected suddenly to be broad and brutal, the chin carried forward with a look of cockney contempt. This combination at once stimulated and terrified the nerves of a neurotic population. He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape.

This particular evening will be remembered in that place for its strange sunset. It looked like the end of the world. All of heaven seemed covered with a quite vivid and palpable plumage; you could only say that the sky was full of feathers, and of feathers that almost brushed one's face. Across the great part of the dome they were grey, with the strangest tints of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green; but toward the west, the whole grew past description, transparent and passionate, and the last red-hot plumes of it covered up the sun like something too good to be seen. The whole spectacle was so close around the earth, as to express nothing but a violent secrecy of some sort. The stratosphere seemed to be a secret. It expressed that splendid smallness which is the soul of local patriotism. The very sky seemed small.

There are some inhabitants who may remember the evening if only by that oppressive sky. There are others who may remember it because it marked the first appearance in that place of the second poet of Saffron Park. For a long time, the red-haired revolutionary had reigned without a rival; it was upon the night of the sunset that his solitude suddenly ended.

The new poet, who introduced himself by the name of Gabriel Syme, was a very mild-looking mortal, with a fair, pointed beard and faint, yellow hair. But an impression grew that he was less meek than he looked. He signaled his entrance by differing with the established poet, Gregory, upon the whole nature of poetry. He said that he (Syme) was a poet of law, a poet of order, and a poet of respectability. So all the Saffron Parkers looked at him as if he had that moment fallen out of that impossible sky.

In fact, Mr. Lucian Gregory, the anarchic poet, connected the two events.

"It may well be," he said, in his sudden lyrical manner, "on such a night of clouds and cruel colors, that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder why there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden."

The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, pointed beard endured these thunderous comments with a certain submissive solemnity. The third party of the group, Gregory's sister Rosamond, who had her brother's braids of red hair, but a kindlier face underneath them, laughed with such a mixture of admiration and disapproval as she gave commonly to the family oracle.

Gregory resumed in high oratorical good humor. "An artist is identical with an anarchist," he cried. "You might transpose the words in any situation. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything else. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere ordinary bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetic thing in the world would be the Underground Railway."

"So it is," said Mr. Syme.

"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and construction workers in the railway trains look so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for, that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square, they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! Oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!"

"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is of epic proportions when a man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when a man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull, because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Baghdad. But man is a magician, and his entire magic is in this: that he does say Victoria, and lo and behold! It is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a timetable, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!"

"Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.

"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train comes in, I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever I arrive at the right place, I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word, 'Victoria,' it is not a meaningless word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'— it is the victory of Adam."

Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile. "And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, 'And what is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt."

"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be seasick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions, but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is — revolting. It's mere vomiting."

The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was too passionate to heed her.

"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestion, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars — the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick."

"Really," said Gregory pompously, "the examples you choose —"

"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished all conventions."

For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory's forehead. "You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionize society on this lawn?"

Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly. "No, I don't," he said. "But I suppose that, if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do."

Gregory's big bull's eyes blinked suddenly like those of an angry lion, and one could almost fancy that his red mane rose. "Don't you think, then," he said in a dangerous voice, "that I am serious about my anarchism?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Syme.

"Am I not serious about my anarchism?" cried Gregory, with knotted fists.

"My dear fellow!" said Syme, and strolled away.

With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found Rosamond Gregory still in his company. "Mr. Syme," she said, "do the people who talk like you and my brother often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?"

Syme smiled. "Do you?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, with grave eyes.

"My dear Miss Gregory," said Syme gently, "there are many kinds of sincerity and insincerity. When you say 'thank you' for the salt, do you mean what you say? No. When you say 'the world is round,' do you mean what you say? No. It is true, but you don't mean it. Now, sometimes a man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he means — from sheer force of meaning it."

She was looking at him from under level brows. Her face was grave and open, and there had fallen upon it the shadow of that innate responsibility which is at the bottom of the most frivolous woman, the maternal concern which is as old as the world.

"Is he really an anarchist, then?" she asked.

"Only in that sense I speak of," replied Syme. "Or, if you prefer it, in that nonsense."

She drew her broad brows together and said abruptly, "He wouldn't really use bombs or that sort of thing?"

Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight and somewhat dandified figure. "Good Lord, no!" he said. "That has to be done anonymously."

And at that, the corners of her own mouth broke into a smile, and she thought with a simultaneous pleasure of Gregory's absurdity and of his safety.

Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the garden, and continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a sincere man, and in spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one. And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely. He defended respectability with violence and exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of tidiness and propriety. All the time, there was a smell of lilac all around him. Once he heard, very faintly in some distant street, a barrel-organ begin to play, and it seemed to him that his heroic words were synchronized with a tiny tune from under or beyond the world.

He stared and talked at the girl's red hair and amused face for what seemed to be a few minutes; and then, feeling that the groups in such a place should mix, rose to his feet. To his astonishment, he discovered the whole garden empty. Everyone had gone long ago, and he went himself with a rather hurried apology. He left with a sense of champagne in his head, which he could not afterward explain. In the wild events which were to follow, this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in some indescribable way, she kept recurring like a theme in music through all his mad adventures afterwards and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night. For what followed was so improbable that it might well have been a dream.

When Syme went out into the starlit street, he found it for the moment empty. Then he realized (in some odd way) that the silence was rather a living silence than a dead one. Directly outside the door stood a street lamp, whose gleam gilded the leaves of the tree that bent out over the fence behind him. About a foot from the lamppost stood a figure almost as rigid and motionless as the lamppost itself. The tall hat and long frock coat were black; the face, in an abrupt shadow, was almost as dark. Only a fringe of fiery hair against the light, and also something aggressive in the attitude, proclaimed that it was the poet Gregory. He had something of the look of a masked thug waiting, sword in hand, for his foe.

He made a sort of doubtful salute, which Syme somewhat more formally returned.

"I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's conversation?"

"Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder.

Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamppost, and then at the tree. "About this and this," he cried. "About order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself — there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold."

"All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree." Then after a pause he said, "But may I ask if you have been standing out here in the dark only to resume our little argument?"

"No," cried out Gregory, in a voice that rang down the street, "I did not stand here to resume our argument, but to end it forever."

The silence fell again, and Syme, though he understood nothing, listened instinctively for something serious.

Gregory began in a smooth voice and with a rather bewildering smile. "Mr. Syme," he said, "this evening you succeeded in doing something rather remarkable. You did something to me that no man born of woman has ever succeeded in doing before."

"Indeed!"

"Now I remember," resumed Gregory reflectively, "one other person succeeded in doing it. The captain of a penny steamer (if I remember correctly) at Southend. You have irritated me."

"I am very sorry," replied Syme with gravity.

"I am afraid my fury and your insult are too shocking to be wiped out even with an apology," said Gregory very calmly. "No duel could wipe it out. If I struck you dead, I could not wipe it out. There is only one way by which that insult can be erased, and that way I choose. I am going, at the possible sacrifice of my life and honor, to prove to you that you were wrong in what you said."

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Gilead Publishing, LLC.
Excerpted by permission of Gilead Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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