Читать книгу The Holy Terror - H.G. Wells - Страница 23

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They pursued their way and their several lines of thought. "I doubt if I got hold of the women," Rud reflected. Chiffan roused himself from profound calculation and gave his mind to Rud's question.

"The women?"

"I doubt if I got hold of them."

"You did exactly right about them. I wish I had your self-respect."

"I don't think I touched them."

"You didn't. And two I mauled. That's where we differ. I got my face slapped. I'm sorry but I did. It—it accelerated my departure. But you just impressed them. That's the difference between us—and why I shall never be a leader. I can't keep my hands off a pretty girl. It's a second-rate quality—for all my wit and wisdom. I have to admit it. You kept absolutely aloof from them. Exactly what a real leader has to do. You were concentrated on bigger things. 'All the world loves a lover' they say. Don't you believe it. Not in politics. Supposing you had started to philander. It wouldn't have been so difficult. That yellow-haired girl—"

Rud had noted the interest of the yellow-haired girl, had felt it even when he was standing and speaking with his back to her, had dreamt about her; but he gave no sign.

"You'd have started a lot of jealousy and irritation among the girls. Even if they didn't want you for themselves, they'd not have liked another girl monopolising you. And you'd have just come down to competition with the other men. Every man is more or less jealous of any man who gets a girl. Even if she isn't his girl...That's one of Lord Horatio Bohun's disadvantages. He can't keep his profile and his aristocracy and his touch of sex appeal out of the picture. Maybe they won't let him...Women disciples are dangerous animals...If I hadn't felt you were a natural leader for ten other reasons, I'd have known it from your handling of those women. Cool. Sure. I was a bit silly out of school, I admit—but all the time I was watching you. One or two of them said things about you."

Rud could not resist asking what they said.

"'He's aloof,' they said. 'There's a sort of mystery about him.'"

And then Chiffan produced one of those maxims for statesmen that Rud was beginning to find characteristic of him.

"A political leader," said Chiffan, "to be successful, must either be an ice-cold bachelor entirely devoid of sex appeal, a manifest cuckold or the faithful husband of some ugly, unpleasant or ridiculous woman. Run your mind through history. All history stands for it. Napoleon, for example; Caesar,—all Cleopatra's bunch; Marcus Aurelius; Justinian; Oliver Cromwell..."

Rud looked anything but elated.

"It's part of the price of greatness," said Chiffan. "And, after all, it isn't as though you wanted them, Rud."

"No," said Rud, relaxing into his primitive self, "If I wanted them—"

"Everything would be different," said Chiffan firmly. "But you don't—either for show or use. Not even out of rivalry."

He regarded Rud, with his head cocked on one side for a moment, and then confirmed his impression. "No."

He went on for a time preoccupied with some train of thought of his own. "Philandering," broke out at last. "Philandering. That's the matter with most of us intellectuals. We philander with women. We philander with ideas. We philander with violence...Rud, the real world is a bloody world, a world of beatings and bruises and cuts and fights and dead men. And men not quite killed who're sick. As that Austrian said. Those dying men who were sick in that room. You heard him? Gods! I can see it still! That's the raw meat of life. What are ideas alone? Ideas—ideas are shapes but not substance...

"That discussion on non-resistance, Rud! Did you ever have a better show of Ideal versus Real? Elegant sentiments and then suddenly those actual things that cut like a knife...

"Idealists! Nothing serious in this world was ever settled by nice little rabbits putting their little votey-poteys into boxy-poxes and going home again. The next thing you have to get, Rud, on your way to leadership, is—"

"Yes?"

"Well, I don't want you to get too much of it."

"What do you mean?"

"A broken knuckle, say—a tooth knocked out and a black eye."

A glow of amused animation appeared upon Chiffan's countenance, a brightening of the eye, a shining effect on the face. It was his nearest approach to laughter.

"Bloody knuckles, black eyes and continence, Rud. The way of the leader is hard..."

"I suppose I've got to face up to it," said Rud after a slight pause. "It's all in the day's work I suppose..."

But that night there was not the faintest intimation of a yellow-haired visitant for him. Instead he had a disagreeable nightmare about those two hefty young men in purple shirts who had come to his room at Camford. But their methods of controversy on this occasion were emphatic and not verbal. They never made a sound. They set about doing frightful things to him. He shot them both dead but they came to life again and he had to keep on shooting them. They were soon covered with blood, but still they got up again. He got his back to the wall and woke up screaming faintly when he had fired his last cartridge and they still came on nearer and nearer.

He lay awake and was still aquiver. What would have happened, he thought, if he hadn't awakened? What would they have done? Then as he got more awake he knew clearly it was only a dream.

He lay staring at a dim ceiling and listening to Chiffan's faint snore.

"No good running away," he whispered. "They'll dig out all the rabbits..."