In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells (read aloud books .TXT) đ
- Author: H. G. Wells
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Now, the whole world before the Change was as sick and feverish as that, it was worried and overworked and perplexed by problems that would not get stated simply, that changed and evaded solution, it was in an atmosphere that had corrupted and thickened past breathing; there was no thorough cool thinking in the world at all. There was nothing in the mind of the world anywhere but half-truths, hasty assumptions, hallucinations, and emotions. Nothing⊠.
I know it seems incredible, that already some of the younger men are beginning to doubt the greatness of the Change our world has undergone, but readâread the newspapers of that time. Every age becomes mitigated and a little ennobled in our minds as it recedes into the past. It is the part of those who like myself have stories of that time to tell, to supply, by a scrupulous spiritual realism, some antidote to that glamour.
Section 4
Always with Parload I was chief talker.
I can look back upon myself with, I believe, an almost perfect detachment, things have so changed that indeed now I am another being, with scarce anything in common with that boastful foolish youngster whose troubles I recall. I see him vulgarly theatrical, egotistical, insincere, indeed I do not like him save with that instinctive material sympathy that is the fruit of incessant intimacy. Because he was myself I may be able to feel and write understandingly about motives that will put him out of sympathy with nearly every reader, but why should I palliate or defend his quality?
Always, I say, I did the talking, and it would have amazed me beyond measure if any one had told me that mine was not the greater intelligence in these wordy encounters. Parload was a quiet youth, and stiff and restrained in all things, while I had that supreme gift for young men and democracies, the gift of copious expression. Parload I diagnosed in my secret heart as a trifle dull; he posed as pregnant quiet, I thought, and was obsessed by the congenial notion of âscientific caution.â I did not remark that while my hands were chiefly useful for gesticulation or holding a pen Parloadâs hands could do all sorts of things, and I did not think therefore that fibers must run from those fingers to something in his brain. Nor, though I bragged perpetually of my shorthand, of my literature, of my indispensable share in Rawdonâs business, did Parload lay stress on the conics and calculus he âmuggedâ in the organized science school. Parload is a famous man now, a great figure in a great time, his work upon intersecting radiations has broadened the intellectual horizon of mankind for ever, and I, who am at best a hewer of intellectual wood, a drawer of living water, can smile, and he can smile, to think how I patronized and posed and jabbered over him in the darkness of those early days.
That night I was shrill and eloquent beyond measure. Rawdon was, of course, the hub upon which I went roundâRawdon and the Rawdonesque employer and the injustice of âwages slaveryâ and all the immediate conditions of that industrial blind alley up which it seemed our lives were thrust. But ever and again I glanced at other things. Nettie was always there in the background of my mind, regarding me enigmatically. It was part of my pose to Parload that I had a romantic love-affair somewhere away beyond the sphere of our intercourse, and that note gave a Byronic resonance to many of the nonsensical things I produced for his astonishment.
I will not weary you with too detailed an account of the talk of a foolish youth who was also distressed and unhappy, and whose voice was balm for the humiliations that smarted in his eyes. Indeed, now in many particulars I cannot disentangle this harangue of which I tell from many of the things I may have said in other talks to Parload. For example, I forget if it was then or before or afterwards that, as it were by accident, I let out what might be taken as an admission that I was addicted to drugs.
âYou shouldnât do that,â said Parload, suddenly. âIt wonât do to poison your brains with that.â
My brains, my eloquence, were to be very important assets to our party in the coming revolution⊠.
But one thing does clearly belong to this particular conversation I am recalling. When I started out it was quite settled in the back of my mind that I must not leave Rawdonâs. I simply wanted to abuse my employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touch with all the cogent reasons there were for sticking to my place, and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spiritedânot to say a defiantâpolicy with my employer.
âI canât stand Rawdonâs much longer,â I said to Parload by way of a flourish.
âThereâs hard times coming,â said Parload.
âNext winter.â
âSooner. The Americans have been overproducing, and they mean to dump. The iron trade is going to have convulsions.â
âI donât care. Potbanks are steady.â
âWith a corner in borax? No. Iâve heardââ
âWhat have you heard?â
âOffice secrets. But itâs no secret thereâs trouble coming to potters. Thereâs been borrowing and speculation. The masters donât stick to one business as they used to do. I can tell that much. Half the valley may be âplayingâ before two months are out.â Parload delivered himself of this unusually long speech in his most pithy and weighty manner.
âPlayingâ was our local euphemism for a time when there was no work and no money for a man, a time of stagnation and dreary hungry loafing day after day. Such interludes seemed in those days a necessary consequence of industrial organization.
âYouâd better stick to Rawdonâs,â said Parload.
âUgh,â said I, affecting a noble disgust.
âThereâll be trouble,â said Parload.
âWho cares?â said I. âLet there be trouble âthe more the better. This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to worse. Why should I cower in Rawdonâs office, like a frightened dog, while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary. When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, IâM going to do so now.â
âThatâs all very well,â began Parload.
âIâm tired of it,â I said. âI want to come to grips with all these Rawdons. I think perhaps if I was hungry and savage I could talk to hungry menââ
âThereâs your mother,â said Parload, in his slow judicial way.
That WAS a difficulty.
I got over it by a rhetorical turn. âWhy should one sacrifice the future of the worldâwhy should one even sacrifice oneâs own futureâbecause oneâs mother is totally destitute of imagination?â
Section 5
It was late when I parted from Parload and came back to my own home.
Our house stood in a highly respectable little square near the Clayton parish church. Mr. Gabbitas, the curate of all work, lodged on our ground floor, and upstairs there was an old lady, Miss Holroyd, who painted flowers on china and maintained her blind sister in an adjacent room; my mother and I lived in the basement and slept in the attics. The front of the house was veiled by a Virginian creeper that defied the Clayton air and clustered in untidy dependant masses over the wooden porch.
As I came up the steps I had a glimpse of Mr. Gabbitas printing photographs by candle light in his room. It was the chief delight of his little life to spend his holiday abroad in the company of a queer little snap-shot camera, and to return with a great multitude of foggy and sinister negatives that he had made in beautiful and interesting places. These the camera company would develop for him on advantageous terms, and he would spend his evenings the year through in printing from them in order to inflict copies upon his undeserving friends. There was a long frameful of his work in the Clayton National School, for example, inscribed in old English lettering, âItalian Travel Pictures, by the Rev. E. B. Gabbitas.â For this it seemed he lived and traveled and had his being. It was his only real joy. By his shaded light I could see his sharp little nose, his little pale eyes behind his glasses, his mouth pursed up with the endeavor of his employment.
âHireling Liar,â I muttered, for was not he also part of the system, part of the scheme of robbery that made wages serfs of Parload and me?âthough his share in the proceedings was certainly small.
âHireling Liar,â said I, standing in the darkness, outside even his faint glow of traveled cultureâŠ
My mother let me in.
She looked at me, mutely, because she knew there was something wrong and that it was no use for her to ask what.
âGood night, mummy,â said I, and kissed her a little roughly, and lit and took my candle and went off at once up the staircase to bed, not looking back at her.
âIâve kept some supper for you, dear.â
âDonât want any supper.â
âBut, dearieâââ
âGood night, mother,â and I went up and slammed my door upon her, blew out my candle, and lay down at once upon my bed, lay there a long time before I got up to undress.
There were times when that dumb beseeching of my motherâs face irritated me unspeakably. It did so that night. I felt I had to struggle against it, that I could not exist if I gave way to its pleadings, and it hurt me and divided me to resist it, almost beyond endurance. It was clear to me that I had to think out for myself religious problems, social problems, questions of conduct, questions of expediency, that her poor dear simple beliefs could not help me at allâand she did not understand! Hers was the accepted religion, her only social ideas were blind submissions to the accepted orderâto laws, to doctors, to clergymen, lawyers, masters, and all respectable persons in authority over us, and with her to believe was to fear. She knew from a thousand little signsâthough still at times I went to church with herâthat I was passing out of touch of all these things that ruled her life, into some terrible unknown. From things I said
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