《代号星期四》05第三章 代号为星期四的人（在线收听）

CHAPTER IV. THE TALE OF A DETECTIVE

 GABRIEL SYME was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his hatred of anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition. His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritan abstinence the more did his father expand into a more than pagan latitude; and by the time the former had come to enforcing vegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached the point of defending cannibalism.

Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left—sanity. But there was just enough in him of the blood of these fanatics to make even his protest for common sense a little too fierce to be sensible. His hatred of modern lawlessness had been crowned also by an accident. It happened that he was walking in a side street at the instant of a dynamite outrage. He had been blind and deaf for a moment, and then seen, the smoke clearing, the broken windows and the bleeding faces. After that he went about as usual—quiet, courteous, rather gentle; but there was a spot on his mind that was not sane. He did not regard anarchists, as most of us do, as a handful of morbid men, combining ignorance with intellectualism. He regarded them as a huge and pitiless peril, like a Chinese invasion.

He poured perpetually into newspapers and their waste-paper baskets a torrent of tales, verses and violent articles, warning men of this deluge of barbaric denial. But he seemed to be getting no nearer his enemy, and, what was worse, no nearer a living. As he paced the Thames embankment, bitterly biting a cheap cigar and brooding on the advance of Anarchy, there was no anarchist with a bomb in his pocket so savage or so solitary as he. Indeed, he always felt that Government stood alone and desperate, with its back to the wall. He was too quixotic to have cared for it otherwise.

He walked on the Embankment once under a dark red sunset. The red river reflected the red sky, and they both reflected his anger. The sky, indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively so lurid, that the water almost seemed of fiercer flame than the sunset it mirrored. It looked like a stream of literal fire winding under the vast caverns of a subterranean country.

Syme was shabby in those days. He wore an old-fashioned black chimney-pot hat; he was wrapped in a yet more old-fashioned cloak, black and ragged; and the combination gave him the look of the early villains in Dickens and Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were more unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, cut and pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, black cigar, bought in Soho for twopence, stood out from between his tightened teeth, and altogether he looked a very satisfactory specimen of the anarchists upon whom he had vowed a holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on the Embankment spoke to him, and said “Good evening.”

Syme, at a crisis of his morbid fears for humanity, seemed stung by the mere stolidity of the automatic official, a mere bulk of blue in the twilight.

“A good evening is it?” he said sharply. “You fellows would call the end of the world a good evening. Look at that bloody red sun and that bloody river! I tell you that if that were literally human blood, spilt and shining, you would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking out for some poor harmless tramp whom you could move on. You policemen are cruel to the poor, but I could forgive you even your cruelty if it were not for your calm.”

“If we are calm,” replied the policeman, “it is the calm of organised resistance.”

“Eh?” said Syme, staring.

“The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle,” pursued the policeman. “The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.”

“Good God, the Board Schools!” said Syme. “Is this undenominational education?”

“No,” said the policeman sadly, “I never had any of those advantages. The Board Schools came after my time. What education I had was very rough and old-fashioned, I am afraid.”

“Where did you have it?” asked Syme, wondering.

“Oh, at Harrow,” said the policeman

The class sympathies which, false as they are, are the truest things in so many men, broke out of Syme before he could control them.

“But, good Lord, man,” he said, “you oughtn’t to be a policeman!”

The policeman sighed and shook his head.

“I know,” he said solemnly, “I know I am not worthy.”

“But why did you join the police?” asked Syme with rude curiosity.

“For much the same reason that you abused the police,” replied the other. “I found that there was a special opening in the service for those whose fears for humanity were concerned rather with the aberrations of the scientific intellect than with the normal and excusable, though excessive, outbreaks of the human will. I trust I make myself clear.”

“If you mean that you make your opinion clear,” said Syme, “I suppose you do. But as for making yourself clear, it is the last thing you do. How comes a man like you to be talking philosophy in a blue helmet on the Thames embankment?”

“You have evidently not heard of the latest development in our police system,” replied the other. “I am not surprised at it. We are keeping it rather dark from the educated class, because that class contains most of our enemies. But you seem to be exactly in the right frame of mind. I think you might almost join us.”

“Join you in what?” asked Syme.

“I will tell you,” said the policeman slowly. “This is the situation: The head of one of our departments, one of the most celebrated detectives in Europe, has long been of opinion that a purely intellectual conspiracy would soon threaten the very existence of civilisation. He is certain that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has, therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also philosophers. It is their business to watch the beginnings of this conspiracy, not merely in a criminal but in a controversial sense. I am a democrat myself, and I am fully aware of the value of the ordinary man in matters of ordinary valour or virtue. But it would obviously be undesirable to employ the common policeman in an investigation which is also a heresy hunt.”

Syme’s eyes were bright with a sympathetic curiosity.

“What do you do, then?” he said.

“The work of the philosophical policeman,” replied the man in blue, “is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet.”

“Do you mean,” asked Syme, “that there is really as much connection between crime and the modern intellect as all that?”

“You are not sufficiently democratic,” answered the policeman, “but you were right when you said just now that our ordinary treatment of the poor criminal was a pretty brutal business. I tell you I am sometimes sick of my trade when I see how perpetually it means merely a war upon the ignorant and the desperate. But this new movement of ours is a very different affair. We deny the snobbish English assumption that the uneducated are the dangerous criminals. We remember the Roman Emperors. We remember the great poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say that the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; they merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroy the very idea of personal possession. Bigamists respect marriage, or they would not go through the highly ceremonial and even ritualistic formality of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage. Murderers respect human life; they merely wish to attain a greater fulness of human life in themselves by the sacrifice of what seems to them to be lesser lives. But philosophers hate life itself, their own as much as other people’s.”

Syme struck his hands together.

“How true that is,” he cried. “I have felt it from my boyhood, but never could state the verbal antithesis. The common criminal is a bad man, but at least he is, as it were, a conditional good man. He says that if only a certain obstacle be removed—say a wealthy uncle—he is then prepared to accept the universe and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an anarchist. He wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. But the evil philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to annihilate them. Yes, the modern world has retained all those parts of police work which are really oppressive and ignominious, the harrying of the poor, the spying upon the unfortunate. It has given up its more dignified work, the punishment of powerful traitors in the State and powerful heresiarchs in the Church. The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have a right to punish anybody else.”

“But this is absurd!” cried the policeman, clasping his hands with an excitement uncommon in persons of his figure and costume, “but it is intolerable! I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re wasting your life. You must, you shall, join our special army against anarchy. Their armies are on our frontiers. Their bolt is ready to fall. A moment more, and you may lose the glory of working with us, perhaps the glory of dying with the last heroes of the world.”

“It is a chance not to be missed, certainly,” assented Syme, “but still I do not quite understand. I know as well as anybody that the modern world is full of lawless little men and mad little movements. But, beastly as they are, they generally have the one merit of disagreeing with each other. How can you talk of their leading one army or hurling one bolt. What is this anarchy?”

“Do not confuse it,” replied the constable, “with those chance dynamite outbreaks from Russia or from Ireland, which are really the outbreaks of oppressed, if mistaken, men. This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outer ring the laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call the outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty section. The outer ring—the main mass of their supporters—are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. They do not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the crime. They believe that if a man seduced seven women he would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers of spring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would naturally feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent section.”

“Oh!” said Syme.

“Naturally, therefore, these people talk about ‘a happy time coming’; ‘the paradise of the future’; ‘mankind freed from the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue,’ and so on. And so also the men of the inner circle speak—the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their mouths”—and the policeman lowered his voice—“in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave.

“They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody.”

“How can I join you?” asked Syme, with a sort of passion.

“I know for a fact that there is a vacancy at the moment,” said the policeman, “as I have the honour to be somewhat in the confidence of the chief of whom I have spoken. You should really come and see him. Or rather, I should not say see him, nobody ever sees him; but you can talk to him if you like.”

“Telephone?” inquired Syme, with interest.

“No,” said the policeman placidly, “he has a fancy for always sitting in a pitch-dark room. He says it makes his thoughts brighter. Do come along.”

Somewhat dazed and considerably excited, Syme allowed himself to be led to a side-door in the long row of buildings of Scotland Yard. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he had been passed through the hands of about four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into a room, the abrupt blackness of which startled him like a blaze of light. It was not the ordinary darkness, in which forms can be faintly traced; it was like going suddenly stone-blind.

“Are you the new recruit?” asked a heavy voice.

And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of a shape in the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him.

“Are you the new recruit?” said the invisible chief, who seemed to have heard all about it. “All right. You are engaged.”

Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against this irrevocable phrase.

“I really have no experience,” he began.

“No one has any experience,” said the other, “of the Battle of Armageddon.”

“But I am really unfit—”

“You are willing, that is enough,” said the unknown.

“Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.”

“I do,” said the other—“martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.”

Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the crimson light of evening, in his shabby black hat and shabby, lawless cloak, he came out a member of the New Detective Corps for the frustration of the great conspiracy. Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (who was professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair and beard, bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite summer suit of light blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short, became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory had first encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he finally left the police premises his friend provided him with a small blue card, on which was written, “The Last Crusade,” and a number, the sign of his official authority. He put this carefully in his upper waistcoat pocket, lit a cigarette, and went forth to track and fight the enemy in all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure ultimately led him we have already seen. At about half-past one on a February night he found himself steaming in a small tug up the silent Thames, armed with swordstick and revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the Central Council of Anarchists.

When Syme stepped out on to the steam-tug he had a singular sensation of stepping out into something entirely new; not merely into the landscape of a new land, but even into the landscape of a new planet. This was mainly due to the insane yet solid decision of that evening, though partly also to an entire change in the weather and the sky since he entered the little tavern some two hours before. Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight.

Over the whole landscape lay a luminous and unnatural discoloration, as of that disastrous twilight which Milton spoke of as shed by the sun in eclipse; so that Syme fell easily into his first thought, that he was actually on some other and emptier planet, which circled round some sadder star. But the more he felt this glittering desolation in the moonlit land, the more his own chivalric folly glowed in the night like a great fire. Even the common things he carried with him—the food and the brandy and the loaded pistol—took on exactly that concrete and material poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey or a bun with him to bed. The sword-stick and the brandy-flask, though in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, became the expressions of his own more healthy romance. The sword-stick became almost the sword of chivalry, and the brandy the wine of the stirrup-cup. For even the most dehumanised modern fantasies depend on some older and simpler figure; the adventures may be mad, but the adventurer must be sane. The dragon without St. George would not even be grotesque. So this inhuman landscape was only imaginative by the presence of a man really human. To Syme’s exaggerative mind the bright, bleak houses and terraces by the Thames looked as empty as the mountains of the moon. But even the moon is only poetical because there is a man in the moon.

The tug was worked by two men, and with much toil went comparatively slowly. The clear moon that had lit up Chiswick had gone down by the time that they passed Battersea, and when they came under the enormous bulk of Westminster day had already begun to break. It broke like the splitting of great bars of lead, showing bars of silver; and these had brightened like white fire when the tug, changing its onward course, turned inward to a large landing stage rather beyond Charing Cross.

The great stones of the Embankment seemed equally dark and gigantic as Syme looked up at them. They were big and black against the huge white dawn. They made him feel that he was landing on the colossal steps of some Egyptian palace; and, indeed, the thing suited his mood, for he was, in his own mind, mounting to attack the solid thrones of horrible and heathen kings. He leapt out of the boat on to one slimy step, and stood, a dark and slender figure, amid the enormous masonry. The two men in the tug put her off again and turned up stream. They had never spoken a word.

第三章 代号为星期四的人

    在一张新面孔出现在门口之前，格里高利呆滞的表情早已消失。他在桌边跳了一下，如野兽般低吼一声，抓起科尔特左轮手枪瞄准赛姆。

    赛姆面无畏惧，礼貌地举起了一只苍白的手，带着一种教区牧师阴柔的尊严说：“别做傻事，难道你没发现没有这个必要吗？你还不明白我们上了同一条船？是的，是让人晕乎的船。”

    格里高利一言不发，他也不能开枪，露出尴尬的神色。

    “难道你没发现我们彼此都进退两难？”赛姆说道，“我不能告诉警方你是一个无政府主义者，你不能告诉无政府主义者我是一个警察。我们只能彼此监视，相互了解。总之，这是一场我与你孤独的智力决斗。我这个警察不能获得警方的帮助；你这个无政府主义者，我可怜的朋友，不能获得那对于无政府状态必不可少的律令和组织的帮助。但你有一个好处，那就是你没有被好管闲事的警察包围着，我却被好管闲事的无政府主义者包围着。我不能背叛你，但我可能背叛我自己。过来，过来，你等着瞧我如何背叛自己！我要开始巧妙的行动了。”

    格里高利慢慢把手枪放下，却仍然盯着他，仿佛他是一头海怪。

    “我不相信不朽，”格里高利最后说道，“但如果，事后你背弃了你的诺言，上帝将会让你在地狱里永远哭号。”

    “我不会背弃诺言，”赛姆坚定地说，“你也不要背弃你的诺言。你的朋友们来了。”

    一群无政府主义者带着懒散而有点疲倦的步伐熙熙攘攘地走进了房间；但是一个长着黑胡子戴眼镜的小个子男人——有点类同于蒂姆·海利那种男人——却与别人拉开一段距离，手里拿着几页文件往前走。

    “格里高利同志，”他说，“我猜这个人是一个代表？”

    格里高利吃了一惊，脸朝下低声说出了赛姆的名字；但赛姆唐突地答道：“我很乐意看到你严格把关，不是代表的人难以进入。”

    可这个长着黑胡子小个子男人还是带着些许怀疑皱起眉头。“你代表哪个支部？”他严厉地问。

    “我几乎不能把它称为支部，”赛姆边说边笑，“我可以把它称为一个基础。”

    “你的意思是？”

    “事实上，”赛姆平静地说，“说实话我是一个严守安息日的人。我被特派到这里来确保你们正确地遵奉星期天的指令。”

    小个子男人手中文件掉落，全部人的脸上都掠过了一丝恐惧。显然，那个代号为星期天的可怕的主席会不定期地派一些特使出席支部会议。

    “好吧，伙计，”拿文件的男子停了片刻说道，“我想我们最好给你安排个座位参加会议？”

    “如果你把我当朋友来问，”赛姆带着严肃的善意答道，“我想是的。”

    当格里高利听到这危险的对话结束时，他的敌人安全了，他猛地站起来，带着痛苦的思绪来回踱步。这确实是一个痛苦的外交，他很清楚赛姆的厚颜无耻很可能会使他脱离所有偶然的困境，对于他们则不报任何指望。他不能背叛赛姆，不仅是出于尊严，也是因为如果他背叛了他，但又因为某些原因未能消灭他，逃脱的赛姆就会摆脱所有保密义务，直接去附近的警察局报案。而现在这个会议毕竟只开一个晚上，也只有一个警探了解情况。今天晚上要尽可能少地谈及计划内容，然后让赛姆离开，就这样碰碰运气。

    于是格里高利大步地走向那群已四散在长椅上的无政府主义者。“我想我们可以开始了，”他说道，“拖船已经在等了。我提议巴顿斯同志主持会议。”

    众人举手表示同意，那个拿文件的小个子男人不动声色地在主席座位上就座。

    “同志们，”他开腔了，声音像手枪射出子弹一样刺耳，“我们今天晚上的会议很重要，尽管它不会很长。这个支部一直能够荣幸地为欧洲中央理事会选举星期四，至今也选举出多位杰出的星期四。我们要为那位一直尽职尽责、在上星期去世的英勇的工作者哀悼。你们都知道，他在事业上的奉献是巨大的。他组织了伟大的布莱顿爆炸行动，那次行动如果再多点运气，就可以把码头上的所有人送上西天。你们也知道，他的去世如他的人生一样忘我，因为他是由于信仰用粉笔与水的清洁混合物来代替牛奶而死，而他认为牛奶这种饮料是野蛮的，因为它牵涉到对奶牛的残忍。他厌恶任何一种残忍或任何近乎残忍的东西。但是，我们聚会不是为了赞扬他的美德，而是为了一项更艰巨的任务。很难恰如其分地赞扬他的品质，但更难的是取代它们。同志们，今天晚上你们有权从在场的人中选出一个成为星期四。如果任何同志有推荐的人选，我会付诸表决。如果没有推荐人选，我就只能告诉自己，那位离开我们的亲爱的爆破手已经把他最后隐秘的美德和纯真带入了不可知的深渊。”

    相继而来的是几乎听不见的就像有时在教堂听到的那种轰动的掌声。然后，一位长着长长的白胡子、身材高大的老年男子，可能是在场的唯一的一个真正的工人，慢吞吞地站起来说：“我提议选举格里高利同志为星期四。”说完，他又慢吞吞地坐下了。

    “有没有人赞同？”主持人问。

    一个穿着天鹅绒外套、有着尖翘胡子的小个子男人表示赞同。

    “在我宣布表决之前，”主持人说道，“我会让格里高利同志作一番演讲。”

    格里高利在雷鸣般的掌声中站起来，在鲜红色头发的映衬下，他脸色异常苍白。不过他在微笑，总体上很放松。他已下定决心，他的策略犹如白色的马路般清晰，就是作一个温和的模棱两可的讲话，这样就会在那个警探的心里留下印象，即无政府主义者的组织确实在从事非常温和的活动。他相藏书网信自己的文学能力——暗示精细差别和选择完美语言的能力。尽管被所有的人围绕着，他认为用心的话就能传达出关于这个组织的微妙的虚假印象。赛姆曾以为从事冒险的无政府主义者仅仅是在蛮干。而他难道不能在这一危急时刻使赛姆再度那么认为？

    “同志们，”格里高利以一种低沉而具有穿透力的嗓音开口了，“我没必要告诉你们我的策略如何，因为这也是你们的策略。我们的信仰被诋毁，被扭曲，完全被混淆和掩盖，但它从未被改变过。那些谈论无政府主义以及它的危险性的人四处打探信息，却不向我们，向它的源头探知消息。他们通过六便士一本的小说、商人的报纸、阿里·斯洛普的《半个假期》和《运动时代》了解无政府主义者，却从未通过无政府主义者来了解无政府主义者。我们没有机会否认那些从欧洲的一头到另一头堆砌在我们头上的诽谤和中伤。一直听说我们是活生生瘟疫的人，却从未听过我们的答复。尽管我有掀翻屋顶的激情，我知道他今晚也不会听到。因为只有在底层的这些被迫害者才会被允许集会，正如基督徒在地下墓地集会一样。但如果因为某个难以置信的意外，今晚这里有一个一直严重误解我们的人，我就会问他这个问题，‘当那些基督徒在地下墓室集会时，他们在地面的街道上具有怎样的道义声誉？有教养的罗马人流传着他们怎样的暴行故事？’假设（我要对他说），假设我们仅仅在重复那个仍然神秘的历史悖论，假设我们像那些令人震惊的基督徒，因为我们真是无害的基督徒。假设我们像这些基督徒一样疯狂，因为我们真像他们一样温顺。”

    迎接他的开场白的欢呼声逐渐减弱，在最后一个字上戛然而止。在突然的静默中，那个穿天鹅绒外套的男子大声尖叫：“我不温顺！”

    “威瑟斯普恩同志告诉我们，”格里高利继续说道，“他不温顺。哦，他对他自己了解得多么少！事实上，他的言辞极端，外表残忍，甚至（对于普通人的品味而言）极为庸俗。但是只有像我一样深刻而微妙的朋友才能够感知处于他内心深处的全然温顺的深沉根基，这根基深沉到连他自己都看不到。我再说一遍，我们属于真正的早期基督徒，我们只不过是来得太晚罢了。我们单纯，因为他们敬畏单纯——看看威瑟斯普恩同志吧。我们谦虚，因为他们谦虚——看看我吧。我们是仁慈的——”

    “不，不！”穿天鹅绒外套的威瑟斯普恩先生高声叫道。

    “我说我们是仁慈的，”格里高利愤怒地重复道，“因为早期的基督徒是仁慈的。但这并没有使他们免于被指控吃人肉的罪名。我们不吃人肉——”

    “可耻！”威瑟斯普恩叫道，“为什么不？”

    “威瑟斯普恩同志，”格里高利带着一种狂热的兴奋说，“急切地想知道为什么没有人吃他（笑声）。无论如何，我们的社会真诚地爱他，它是建立在爱心的基础之上——”

    “不，不！”威瑟斯普恩说，“打倒爱心。”

    “它是建立在爱心的基础之上，”格里高利咬着牙重复道，“我们作为一个团体将要追求的目标不会有什么阻碍，假使我当选为团体的代表，我所追求的目标也不会有阻碍。我们要忽视那些把我们描述为人类社会的刺客和敌人的诽谤，伴随着道德勇气和平静的理性压力，去追求永恒的兄弟情谊和单纯性的理想。”

    格里高利重新坐到座位上，手摸了一下额头。突如其来的寂静令人尴尬，主持人像机器人般僵硬地站起来，用一种呆板的嗓音说：“有没有人反对选格里高利同志？”

    与会者个个面无表情，对此非常失望，威瑟斯普恩同志在座位上不安地晃动身子，浓密的胡子也随晃动的身子摇摆，口里念念有词。然而，通过这全然匆忙的例行程序，动议将被提出而且通过。不过正当主持人张开嘴要说出动议时，赛姆站起身来平静而小声地说道：“是的，主持人先生，我反对。”

    演讲术里最有效的方法是出人意料地改变语气。盖布利尔·赛姆先生明显懂得演讲术。他以有节制的语气简短地开头，下一句话将如一支开了火的枪在地下室里鸣响和迸发。

    “同志们！”他叫道，语气令人吃惊，“我们来这儿就是为了这个目的？我们像老鼠一样住在地下就是为了听这样的谈话？这种谈话，我们只有在主日学校餐会上吃小圆面包时才会听到。我们在墙边布满武器，用死亡闩住那道门，就是怕有人闯进来听到格里高利同志对我们说的，‘要仁慈，那样你才会快乐’，‘诚实是上策’以及‘美德是它本身的奖赏’？在格里高利同志的话语中，没有一个词是一个堂区牧师听了不会欢笑的（听听，听听）。但是，我不是一个堂区牧师（响亮的欢呼声），我听了他的讲话不会欢笑（继续欢呼）。一个能够成为优秀的堂区牧师的人并不适合担当一个坚定有力、而且能干的星期四（听听，听听）。

    “格里高利同志以一种过度致歉的语气告诉我们，我们不是社会的敌人。可我要说我们就是社会的敌人，因为社会而变得更坏。我们是社会的敌人，因为社会是人类的敌人，它最古老最冷酷的敌人（听听，听听）。格里高利同志（再度以道歉的语气）告诉我们，我们不是杀人犯。这一点我同意。我们不是杀人犯，我们是刽子手（欢呼）。”

    自从赛姆站起来，格里高利就一直坐着盯着他，表情因为震惊而显得有些痴呆。在赛姆停顿的这一刻，他泥塑似的双唇分开了，说：

    “你这该死的伪君子！”

    赛姆用淡蓝色眼睛直视着格里高利可怕的眼睛，然后带着尊严说道：“格里高利同志指责我伪善。他像我一样了解我信守承诺、恪尽职守。我说话不会矫揉造作，我不会假装。我要说格里高利同志是因为他所有和善的品质，所以不适合担任星期四。他不适合担任星期四是因为他和善的品质。我们不想让无政府主义最高理事会沾染上脆弱的仁慈之气（听听，听听）。现在不必讲究礼仪性的礼貌，也不必讲究礼仪性的谦虚。我反对格里高利同志正如我反对欧洲的所有政府，因为献身于无政府主义的无政府主义者如同忘记自尊一样忘记了谦虚（欢呼）。我不是一个人，我是一项事业（再次欢呼）。我反对格里高利同志正如我从墙边的架子上选择这一支手枪而不是另一支手枪一样，与个人无关；而且我要说，与其为最高理事会选择格里高利以及他无益的做派，大家不如选择我——”

    他的话语被一阵震耳欲聋的鼓掌欢呼声淹没。先前随着他的长篇的演说变得越来越强硬的听众，此刻因为赞同变得狂热，那些面孔歪斜着带着期待露齿而笑，或者大嘴豁然张开愉快地叫喊。在他宣布自己准备竞争星期四这一职位的那一刻，赞同声咆哮而出，而且变得难以控制。

    与此同时格里高利猛地站起来，嘴里吐着白沫，朝着欢呼的人群大叫。“住嘴，你这该死的疯子！”他扯破喉咙似的喊道，“住嘴，你——”

    但赛姆传来的声音比格里高利的叫喊声和房间里人群的呼喊更响亮，他以无情的雷鸣般的声音述说着——

    “我不会要求理事会反驳那些将我们称为杀人犯的诽谤；我要去赢得这一称谓（响亮的长时间的欢呼）。对于把这些人称为宗教的敌人的牧师，对于把这些人称为法律的敌人的法官，对于把这些人称为秩序和公众准则的敌人的肥胖的国会议员，对于所有这些人我要回答，‘你们是无信义的统治者，但你们是真正的预言家。我来就是要毁灭你们，并且实现你们的预言。’”

    沉重的喧嚣逐渐退去，不过在它停止之前威瑟斯普恩猛地站起来，他的头发和胡子都竖立起来，说：“我提出一个修正案，任命赛姆同志为星期四。”

    “停，我告诉你们！”格里高利带着狂乱的面孔，发狂的双手用力挥动着大叫，“停，这是——”

    主持人用他冷冰冰的嗓门打断了他的话语。“有没有人支持这个修正案？”他问道。

    一个带着忧郁眼神、疲倦面容，留着美式胡子瘦高个男子在后排长椅上慢慢地站起来。“我请求支持选举赛姆同志。”他用石头一样沉闷的声音说道。

    格里高利刚才叫了好一会儿，现在他的嗓音变得比任何尖叫更令人震惊。“不能选这个人。他是一个——”

    “是的，”赛姆不动声色地说道，“他是什么？”

    格里高利的嘴动了两次，却没有发出声音，血液开始慢慢地流回他僵死的面孔。“他对我们的工作没有什么经验。”他说，然后突然坐下。

    在他坐下之前，那个留着美国式胡子的瘦高个男子又站了起来，高声地用呆板的美式腔调重复道：“我请求支持选举赛姆同志。”

    “按惯例，修正案将付诸表决！”巴顿斯先生机械而迅速地说。

    “问题是赛姆同志——”格里高利再次猛地站起来，大喘着气，非常激动。“同志们，”他叫道，“我不是一个疯子。”

    “哦，哦！”威瑟斯普恩先生说。

    “我不是一个疯子，”格里高利重复道，他那可怕的真诚一度使整个房间的人都惊讶，“如果你们喜欢可以把它称为疯狂。可我要给你们一个忠告，不，我不把它称为忠告，因为我想不出什么理由把它称为忠告。我把它称为命令，称为疯狂的命令，但是照它做。攻击，但是要听我的！杀了我，但是要服从我！不要选这个人。”真相是如此的可怕，甚至戴着枷锁也是如此，顷刻间赛姆微小而荒唐的胜利像芦苇一样摇摆。但是从赛姆阴冷的蓝眼睛里你看不到这一点。他径直地开口说：“格里高利同志命令——”

    然后咒语被打断了，有一位无政府主义者对格里高利喊道：“你是谁？你不是星期天。”然后另一位无政府主义者用更为沉闷的嗓音补充道：“而且你也不是星期四。”

    “同志们，”格里高利叫道，他的嗓音就像一位痛到极致，即将脱离痛苦的殉道者，“不管你们憎恶我是个暴君或者奴隶，我都不在意。如果你们不接受我的命令，贬黜我，我向你们下跪，听凭你们处置。我恳求你们。不要选这个人。”

    “格里高利同志，”痛苦地停顿之后，主持人说道，“这着实有失尊严。”

    在会议的进程中第一次出现了好几秒钟的沉默。而后，格里高利坐倒在椅子上，成了一个虚弱的废人，主持人就像突然重新开动的发条装置，重复道：“问题是赛姆同志经过选举担任总会星期四的职位。”

    欢呼声如大海般咆哮，群众的手举起来就像森林。三分钟之后秘密警察部门的盖布利尔·赛姆先生，被选举担任欧洲无政府主义者总会的星期四职位。

    房间里的每一个人似乎都感受到了等在河上的拖船以及等在桌上的剑杖和左轮手枪。选举结束并且不可改变的那一刻，赛姆收到了证明他的当选的文件，群众都站了起来，兴奋地在房间里移动交融。赛姆发现自己不知怎么地就和格里高利面对面了，后者仍然带着震惊和仇恨盯着他。他们沉默了好几分钟。

    “你是一个魔鬼！”格里高利最后说。

    “而你是一位绅士。”赛姆严肃地说。

    “你欺骗了我，”格里高利开了口，从头到脚都在发抖，“把我骗进了——”

    “讲话要有道理，”赛姆立刻反驳，“要说欺骗，不是你把我骗进了那种魔鬼的议会？是你先让我发誓，我才让你发的誓。也许我俩都在做我们认为正确的事情。只是我们认定的事情有极大的差别，所以我们之间没有任何妥协的余地，除了荣誉和死亡，不可能有别的存在。”他把那件大气的斗篷披在肩上，又从桌上拿起了酒瓶。

    “船已经准备就绪，”忙个不停的巴顿斯先生说，“小心，请往这边走。”

    他打了个手势，招来了铺面巡视员，又领着赛姆走下一条短短的、四面包铁的通道，仍然感到极度痛苦的格里高利兴奋地跟在他们后面。通道尽头是一扇门，巴顿斯猛地把门打开，一幅月光照耀下的银蓝色河面的图画尽收眼底。出口的旁边有一艘又黑又矮的大汽艇，就像一条长着一只红眼睛的幼龙。

    盖布利尔·赛姆一边踏上甲板，一边转身看着目瞪口呆的格里高利。

    “你信守了你的承诺，”他温和地说，表情在黑暗中淹没，“你是一个正直的人，我谢谢你。你由始至终信守承诺，还有一件特殊的东西你在这个事件的开头就答应过我，当然在结束时你已经给我了。”

    “你指什么？”茫无头绪的格里高利叫道，“我答应过你什么？”

    “一个非常愉快的夜晚。”赛姆道。汽船开动时他用剑杖敬了个军礼。