Читать книгу The Silence of Colonel Bramble - Andre Maurois - Страница 5

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BOSWELL. "Why then, sir, did he talk so?"

JOHNSON. "Why, sir, to make you answer as you did."

The batteries were asleep; Major Parker was answering questions from the brigade; the orderlies brought the rum, sugar and boiling water; the colonel put the gramophone to speed 61, and Dr. O'Grady talked about the Russian Revolution.

"It is unprecedented," said he, "for the men who made a revolution to remain in power after it is over. Yet one still finds revolutionaries: that proves how badly history is taught."

"Parker," said the colonel, "pass the port."

"Ambition," said Aurelle, "is after all not the only motive that inspires men to action. One can be a revolutionary from hatred of a tyrant, from jealousy, or even from the love of humanity."

Major Parker abandoned his papers.

"I admire France very much, Aurelle, especially since this war; but one thing shocks me in your country, if you will allow me to speak plainly, and that is your jealousy of equality. When I read the history of your Revolution I am sorry I was not there to kick Robespierre and that horrible fellow Hébert. And your sans-culottes. Well, that makes me long to dress up in purple satin and gold lace and walk about the Place de la Concorde."

The doctor allowed a particularly acute attack of hysteria on the part of Madame Finzi-Magrini to pass, and went on:

"The love of humanity is a pathological state of a sexual origin which often appears at the age of puberty in nervous and clever people. The excess of phosphorus in the system must get out somewhere. As for hatred of a tyrant, that is a more human sentiment which has full play in time of war, when force and the mob are one. Emperors must be mad fools to decide on declaring wars which substitute an armed nation for their Prætorian Guards. That idiocy accomplished, despotism of course produces revolution until terrorism leads to the inevitable reaction."

"You condemn us then, doctor, to oscillate between rebellion and a coup d'état?"

"No," said the doctor, "because the English people, who have already given the world Stilton cheese and comfortable chairs, have invented for our benefit the Parliamentary system. Our M.P.'s arrange rebellions and coups d'état for us, which leaves the rest of the nation time to play cricket. The Press completes the system by enabling us to take our share in these tumults by proxy. All these things form a part of modern comfort and in a hundred years' time every man, white, yellow, red or black, will refuse to inhabit a room without hot water laid on, or a country without a Parliament.

"I hope you are wrong," said Major Parker. "I hate politicians, and I want, after the War, to go and live in the East, because nobody out there pays any attention to a government of babblers."

"My dear major, why the devil do you mix your personal feelings with these questions? Politics are controlled by laws as necessary as the movements of the stars. Are you annoyed that there are dark nights because you happen to prefer moonlight? Humanity lies on an uncomfortable bed. When the sleeper aches too much he turns over, that is a war or an insurrection. Then he goes to sleep again for a few centuries. All that is quite natural and happens without much suffering, if one does not mix up any moral ideas with it. Attacks of cramp are not virtues. But each change finds, alas, its prophets who, from love of humanity, as Aurelle says, put this miserable globe to fire and sword."

"That's very well said, doctor," said Aurelle, "but I return the compliment; if those are your sentiments, why do you take the trouble to belong to a party? Because you are a damned socialist."

"Doctor," said the colonel, "pass the port."

"Ah," said the doctor, "that's because I would rather be persecutor than persecuted. You must know how to recognize the arrival of these periodical upheavals and prepare. This war will bring socialism, that is to say, the total sacrifice of the aristocrat to the Leviathan. This in itself is neither a blessing nor a misfortune: it is cramp. Let us then turn over with a good grace, as long as we feel we shall be more comfortable on the other side."

"That's a perfectly absurd theory," said Major Parker, angrily sticking out his square chin, "and if you adopt it, doctor, you must give up medicine! Why try and stop the course of diseases? They are also, according to you, periodic and necessary upheavals. But if you pretend to fight against tuberculosis do not deny me the right to attack universal suffrage."

At this moment a R.A.M.C. sergeant entered and asked Dr. O'Grady to come and see a wounded man: Major Parker remained master of the situation. The colonel, who had a horror of arguments, seized the opportunity to talk about something else.

"Messiou," he said, "what is the displacement of one of your largest cruisers?"

"Sixty thousand tons, sir," hazarded Aurelle wildly.

This knock-out blow put the colonel out of action, and Aurelle asked Major Parker why he objected to universal suffrage.

"But don't you see, my dear Aurelle, that it is the most extravagant idea that humanity has ever conceived? Our political system will be considered more monstrous than slavery in a thousand years. One man, one vote, whatever the man is! Do you pay the same price for a good horse as for a crock?"

"Have you ever heard the immortal reasoning of our Courteline? 'Why should I pay twelve francs for an umbrella when I can get a glass of beer for six sous?'"

"Equal rights for men!" continued the major vehemently. "Why not equal courage and equal intelligence while you are about it?"

Aurelle loved the major's impassioned and pleasant harangues and, to keep the discussion going, said that he did not see how one could refuse a people the right to choose their leaders.

"To control them, Aurelle, yes; but to choose them, never! An aristocracy cannot be elected. It is or it isn't. Why, if I were to attempt to choose the Commander-in-Chief or the Superintendent of Guy's Hospital I should be shut up; but, if I wish to have a voice in the election of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the First Lord of the Admiralty, I'm a good citizen!"

"That is not quite correct, major. Ministers are not elected. Mind, I agree with you that our political system is imperfect; but so are all human affairs. And then, 'La pire des Chambres vaut mieux que la meilleure des antichambres.'"

"I piloted round London lately," replied the major, "an Arab chief who honoured me with his friendship, and when I had shown him the House of Commons and explained what went on there, he remarked, 'It must give you a lot of trouble cutting off those six hundred heads when you are not pleased with the Government.'"

"Messiou," said the colonel, exasperated. "I am going to play 'Destiny Waltz' for you."

* * * * *

Major Parker remained silent while the waltz unrolled its rhythmic phrases, but he ruminated over his old resentment against that "horrible fellow Hébert" and, as soon as the record had ground out its final notes, he started a new attack on Aurelle.

"What advantage," he said, "could the French have found in changing their government eight times in a century? Revolutions have become a national institution with you. In England, it would be impossible. If a crowd collected at Westminster and made a disturbance, the policeman would tell them to go away and they would do so."

"What an idea!" said Aurelle, who did not like Revolutions, but who thought he ought to defend an old French lady against this hot-headed Saxon. "You must not forget, major, that you also cut off your King's head. No policeman intervened to save Charles Stuart, as far as I know."

"The assassination of Charles I," said the major, "was the sole work of Oliver Cromwell; now Oliver was a very good cavalry colonel, but he knew nothing of the real feelings of the English people, which they showed pretty plainly at the time of the Restoration.

"Cromwell's head, which had been embalmed, was stuck on a pike on the top of Westminster Hall. One stormy night the wind broke the shaft of the pike and the head rolled to the feet of a sentry. He took it home and hid it in the chimney of his house, where it remained until his death. It passed through various hands till it came into the possession of a friend of mine, and I have often sat at tea opposite the head of the Protector still on its broken pike. One could easily recognize the wart which he had on his forehead and there still remains a lock of chestnut hair."

"Humph," grunted the colonel, at last interested in the conversation.

"Besides," continued the major, "the English Revolution does not compare in any way with the French one: it did not weaken the ruling classes. As a matter of fact, all the bad business of 1789 was caused by Louis XIV. Instead of leaving your country the strong armour of a landed gentry he made his nobles into the ridiculous puppets of Versailles, whose sole business was to hand him his coat and his waistcoat. In destroying the prestige of a class which should be the natural supporters of the monarchy, he ruined it beyond repair, and more's the pity."

"It is very easy for you to criticize us," said Aurelle. "We made our Revolution for you: the most important event in English history is the taking of the Bastille, and well you know it."

"Bravo, messiou," said the colonel, "stick up for your country. One ought always to stick up for one's country. Now please pass the port. I am going to play you 'The Mikado.'"