登陆注册
15489700000073

第73章 CHAPTER THE SECOND OUR PROGRESS FROM CAMDEN TOWN T

He seemed to think himself, at last, released from any such limitations. He moved a quite considerable hill, and nearly sixty mature trees were moved with it to open his prospect eastward, moved it about two hundred feet to the south. At another time he caught a suggestion from some city restaurant and made a billiard-room roofed with plate glass beneath the waters of his ornamental lake. He furnished one wing while its roof still awaited completion. He had a swimming bath thirty feet square next to his bedroom upstairs, and to crown it all he commenced a great wall to hold all his dominions together, free from the invasion of common men. It was a ten-foot wall, glass surmounted, and had it been completed as he intended it, it would have had a total length of nearly eleven miles. Some of it towards the last was so dishonestly built that it collapsed within a year upon its foundations, but some miles of it still stand. I never think of it now but what I think of the hundreds of eager little investors who followed his "star," whose hopes and lives, whose wives' security and children's prospects are all mixed up beyond redemption with that flaking mortar....

It is curious how many of these modern financiers of chance and bluff have ended their careers by building. It was not merely my uncle. Sooner or later they all seem to bring their luck to the test of realisation, try to make their fluid opulence coagulate out as bricks and mortar, bring moonshine into relations with a weekly wages-sheet. Then the whole fabric of confidence and imagination totters--and down they come....

When I think of that despoiled hillside, that colossal litter of bricks and mortar, and crude roads and paths, the scaffolding and sheds, the general quality of unforeseeing outrage upon the peace of nature, I am reminded of a chat I had with the vicar one bleak day after he had witnessed a glide. He talked to me of aeronautics as I stood in jersey and shorts beside my machine, fresh from alighting, and his cadaverous face failed to conceal a peculiar desolation that possessed him.

"Almost you convince me," he said, coming up to me, "against my will.... A marvellous invention! But it will take you a long time, sir, before you can emulate that perfect mechanism--the wing of a bird."

He looked at my sheds.

"You've changed the look of this valley, too," he said.

"Temporary defilements," I remarked, guessing what was in his mind.

"Of course. Things come and go. Things come and go. But--H'm.

I've just been up over the hill to look at Mr. Edward Ponderevo's new house. That--that is something more permanent.

A magnificent place!--in many ways. Imposing. I've never somehow brought myself to go that way before. Things are greatly advanced.... We find--the great number of strangers introduced into the villages about here by these operations, working-men chiefly, a little embarrassing. It put us out. They bring a new spirit into the place; betting--ideas--all sorts of queer notions. Our publicans like it, of course. And they come and sleep in one's outhouses--and make the place a little unsafe at nights. The other morning I couldn't sleep--a slight dyspepsia--and I looked out of the window. I was amazed to see people going by on bicycles. A silent procession. I counted ninety-seven--in the dawn. All going up to the new road for Crest Hill. Remarkable I thought it. And so I've been up to see what they were doing."

"They would have been more than remarkable thirty years ago," I said.

"Yes, indeed. Things change. We think nothing of it now at all--comparatively. And that big house--"

He raised his eyebrows. "Really stupendous! Stupendous.

"All the hillside--the old turf--cut to ribbons!"

His eye searched my face. "We've grown so accustomed to look up to Lady Grove," he said, and smiled in search of sympathy. "It shifts our centre of gravity."

"Things will readjust themselves," I lied.

He snatched at the phrase. "Of course," he said.

"They'll readjust themselves--settle down again. Must. In the old way. It's bound to come right again--a comforting thought.

Yes. After all, Lady Grove itself had to be built once upon a time--was--to begin with--artificial."

His eye returned to my aeroplane. He sought to dismiss his graver preoccupations. "I should think twice," he remarked, "before I trusted myself to that concern.... But I suppose one grows accustomed to the motion."

He bade me good morning and went his way, bowed and thoughtful....

He had kept the truth from his mind a long time, but that morning it had forced its way to him with an aspect that brooked no denial that this time it was not just changes that were coming in his world, but that all his world lay open and defenceless, conquered and surrendered, doomed so far as he could see, root and branch, scale and form alike, to change.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 桐庭

    桐庭

    上古之时已有桐庭,传闻中极度辉煌之后便迅速败落。如今,叶木生收了一个桐族亡国公主为弟子,欲要助她光复桐国,无意之间重立桐庭,自此之后,他将面对万千世界。
  • 无主境

    无主境

    “世间没有真正的所向披靡,万物皆有相生相克。任你空有凌云壮志,那又如何?俯瞰苍天大地的伟梦,不止于你。所以,我劝你最好听天由命,好自为之。”……
  • 一世情怨,踏碎繁华

    一世情怨,踏碎繁华

    在今生,他们在血泊里离别,在时间浏览中,她为了真爱,去了许多地方,却都与他不期而遇,是手拿古筝的王爷,是霸道的不可一世的总裁,还是在花田里的老农,而命运在现实与梦幻中展开。
  • 龙战之怒

    龙战之怒

    二十年前龙战被带离华夏,这二十年内发生了什么,二十年后龙战回到了华夏,他能发现这二十年内发生了什么吗,能找到他父母吗,这一切的一切是人为还是有不可告人的秘密,龙战能否解开当年的谜底
  • tfboys十年

    tfboys十年

    tfboys与三位少女的故事:她(他)们的相遇只是一个奇迹,为什么老天爷让她(他)们注定在一起?就只是因为星空下的那个约定吗?
  • 剑破星宇

    剑破星宇

    星宇之上强者无数,星宇摇曳虚空碎裂。强者威能无限,使得无数凡人仰望。开始踏上修习剑术之路,他不过是荒草之众,之一,而他的传奇这一刻开始。
  • 此生折花上青云

    此生折花上青云

    名门贵女,重生归来。压倒一切,欲上青云东宫阙。萧折靡:我回来你们都要死!东宫太子:我是男主,也要死?萧折靡冷冷一笑:死!阿靡暗搓搓暗恋太子殿下多年,那是她的心头宝,怎么舍得让他死。
  • 华夏千年奥秘

    华夏千年奥秘

    天佑抓过鬼杀过妖养过外星人。更是解开了华夏千年奥秘。推动了人类的发展进程。原来历史上鼎鼎大名的才子曹植,是一个外星人。原来成为富豪却是这么容易的。
  • 邪王助攻之王妃太头疼

    邪王助攻之王妃太头疼

    论貌,她不倾城不倾国,但颜如舜华,清越脱尘。论毒论医,她举世无双,无能匹敌,但绝非绵善之辈。一朝穿越,斗继母,碾继妹,退婚,夺嫁妆那是轻而易举。济世救人,下毒害人参半参半。名利双收,家财万贯,娉礼无数,令众绝色美男争相娶之,不在话下。可惜一次意外的相遇,她偶然的为他解毒,他便死皮赖脸的赖上了她,非她不娶。亲自掐灭她周身的朵朵桃花,在她面前笑得邪魅众生,潋滟绝艳。她白他一眼,没有选择,只好委身嫁他。从此,她日日被他溺爱无边!盛宠,专宠,欲宠各种宠无度!一向清冷从容的她被他逼的有些无奈,更头疼。“王爷其他的还好说,只是“欲”能否节制点。”王曰:“否”。【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 故事我党好作风:与青少年谈优良传统

    故事我党好作风:与青少年谈优良传统

    历史是最好的教科书,我党好作风是最好的营养剂。 “十二五”国家重点出版物出版规划项目 5幅国家重大历史题材美术工程名画,49个中国共产党的优良传统故事…… 讲述共产党五大好作风的中国故事,图文从苦难到辉煌的伟大历程; 用历史成就未来,为青少年的“大脑补钙”,坚定中国梦的理想和信念。