The Research MagnificentWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Research Magnificent
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Conduct of life -- Fiction
It must have happened yesterday, he explained. They were
Bulgarians--traitors. They had been converted to the Patriarchists by
the Greeks--by a Greek band, that is to say. They had betrayed one
of their own people. Now a Bulgarian band had descended upon
them. Bulgarian bands it seemed were always particularly rough on
Bulgarian-speaking Patriarchists....
9
That night they slept in a dirty little room in a peasant's house in
Resnia, and in the middle of the night Amanda woke up with a start and
heard Benham talking. He seemed to be sitting up as he talked. But he
was not talking to her and his voice sounded strange.
“Flies,” he said, “in the sunlight!”
He was silent for a time and then he repeated the same words.
Then suddenly he began to declaim. “Oh! Brutes together. Apes. Apes with
knives. Have they no lord, no master, to save them from such things?
This is the life of men when no man rules.... When no man rules.... Not
even himself.... It is because we are idle, because we keep our wits
slack and our wills weak that these poor devils live in hell. These
things happen here and everywhere when the hand that rules grows
weak. Away in China now they are happening. Persia. Africa.... Russia
staggers. And I who should serve the law, I who should keep order,
wander and make love.... My God! may I never forget! May I never forget!
Flies in the sunlight! That man's face. And those six men!
“Grip the savage by the throat.
“The weak savage in the foreign office, the weak savage at the party
headquarters, feud and indolence and folly. It is all one world. This
and that are all one thing. The spites of London and the mutilations
of Macedonia. The maggots that eat men's faces and the maggots that rot
their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds....”
To Amanda it sounded like delirium.
“CHEETAH!” she said suddenly between remonstrance and a cry of terror.
The darkness suddenly became quite still. He did not move.
She was afraid. “Cheetah!” she said again.
“What is it, Amanda?”
“I thought--. Are you all right?”
“Quite.”
“But do you feel well?”
“I've got this cold I caught in Ochrida. I suppose I'm feverish.
But--yes, I'm well.”
“You were talking.”
Silence for a time.
“I was thinking,” he said.
“You talked.”
“I'm sorry,” he said after another long pause.
10
The next morning Benham had a pink spot on either cheek, his eyes were
feverishly bright, he would touch no food and instead of coffee he
wanted water. “In Monastir there will be a doctor,” he said. “Monastir
is a big place. In Monastir I will see a doctor. I want a doctor.”
They rode out of the village in the freshness before sunrise and up long
hills, and sometimes they went in the shade of woods and sometimes in
a flooding sunshine. Benham now rode in front, preoccupied, intent,
regardless of Amanda, a stranger, and she rode close behind him
wondering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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