The Purple Cloud
Page 31
neveronce grew below the neck in all those centuries, those people beingcertainly much more mental than cordial, though I doubt if they weregenuinely mental either--reminding one rather of that composite image ofNebuchadnezzar, head of gold, breast brazen, feet of clay--headman-like, heart cannibal, feet bestial--like aegipeds, and mermaids, andpuzzling undeveloped births. However, it is of no importance: andperhaps I am not much better than the rest, for I, too, after all, am ofthem. At any rate, their lyddites, melanites, cordites, dynamites,powders, jellies, oils, marls, and civilised barbarisms and obiahs, camein very well for their own destruction: for by two o'clock I had soworked, that I had on the first cart the phalanx of fuses; on thesecond a goodly number of kegs, cartridge-cases and cartridge-boxes,full of powder, explosive cottons and gelatines, and liquidnitro-glycerine, and earthy dynamite, with some bombs, two reels ofcordite, two pieces of tarred cloth, a small iron ladle, a shovel, and acrow-bar; the cab came next, containing a considerable quantity of loosecoal; and lastly, in the private carriage lay four big cans of commonoil. And first, in the Laboratory, I connected a fuse-conductor with ahuge tun of blasting-gelatine, and I set the fuse on the ground, timedfor the midnight of the twelfth day thence; and after that I visited theMain Factory, the Carriage Department, the Ordnance Store Department,the Royal Artillery Barracks, and the Powder Magazines in the Marshes,traversing, as it seemed to me, miles of building; and in some I laidheaps of oil-saturated coal with an explosive in suitable spots on theground-floor near wood-work, and in some an explosive alone: and all Itimed for ignition at midnight of the twelfth day. Hot now, and black asink, I proceeded through the town, stopping with perfect system at everyhundredth door: and I laid the faggots of a great burning: and timedthem all for ignition at midnight of the twelfth day.
* * * * *
Whatever door I found closed against me I drove at it with a maniacmalice.
* * * * *
Shall I commit the whole dark fact to paper?--that deep, deep secret ofthe human organism?
As I wrought, I waxed wicked as a demon! And with lowered neck, andforward curve of the lower spine, and the blasphemous strut of tragicplay-actors, I went. For here was no harmless burning which I did--butthe crime of arson; and a most fiendish, though vague, malevolence, andthe rage to burn and raven and riot, was upon me like a dog-madness, andall the mood of Nero, and Nebuchadnezzar: and from my mouth proceededall the obscenities of the slum and of the gutter, and I sent up suchhisses and giggles of challenge to Heaven that day as never yet has manlet out. But this way lies a spinning frenzy....
* * * * *
I have taken a dead girl with wild huggings to my bosom; and I havetouched the corrupted lip, and spat upon her face, and tossed her down,and crushed her teeth with my heel, and jumped and jumped upon herbreast, like the snake-stamping zebra, mad, mad...!
* * * * *
I was desolated, however, that first day of the faggot-laying, even inthe midst of my sense of omnipotence, by one thing, which made me givesome kicks to the motor: for it was only crawling, so that a good partof the way I was stalking by its side; and when I came to that hill nearthe Old Dover Road, the whole thing stopped, and refused to move, theweight of the train being too great for my horse-power traction. I didnot know what to do, and stood there in angry impotence a fullhalf-hour, for the notion of setting up an electric station, with orwithout automatic stoking-gear, presented so hideous a picture of labourto me, that I would not entertain it. After a time, however, I thoughtthat I remembered that there was a comparatively new power station inSt. Paneras driven by turbines: and at once, I uncoupled the motor,covered the drays with the tarpaulins, and went driving at singingspeed, choosing the emptier by-streets, and not caring whom I crushed.After some trouble I found, in fact, the station in an obscure by-streetmade of two long walls, and went in by a window, a rage upon me to havemy will quickly accomplished. I ran up some stairs, across two rooms,into a gallery containing a switch-board, and in the room below saw theworks, all very neat-looking, but, as I soon found, very dusty. I wentdown, and fixed upon a generating set--there were three--that would givea decent load, and then saw that the switch-gear belonging to thisparticular generator was in order. I then got some cloths and thoroughlycleaned the dust off the commutators; ran next--for I was in a strangefierce haste--and turned the water into the turbines, and away went theengine; I hurried to set the lubricators running on the bearings, and ina couple of minutes had adjusted the speed, and the brushes of thegenerators, and switched the current on to the line. By this time,however, I saw that it was getting dark, and feared that little could bedone that day; still, I hurried out, the station still running, got intothe car, and was off to look for a good electric one, of which there arehosts in the streets, in order at least to clean up and adjust the motorthat night. I drove down three by-streets, till I turned into EustonRoad: but I had no sooner reached it than I pulled up--with suddenjerk--with a shout of astonishment.
That cursed street was all lighted up and gay! and three shimmeringelectric globes, not far apart, illuminated every feature of a ghastlybattle-field of dead.
And there was a thing there, the grinning impression of which I shallcarry to my grave: a thing which spelled and spelled at me, and ceased,and began again, and ceased, and spelled at me. For, above a shop whichfaced me was a flag, a red flag with white letters, fluttering on thegale the words: 'Metcalfe's Stores'; and beneath the flag, stretchedright across the house, was the thing which spelled, letter by letter,in letters of light: and it spelled two words, deliberately, coming tothe end, and going back to recommence:
_Drink_ ROBORAL.
And that was the last word of civilised Man to me, Adam Jeffson--itsfinal counsel--its ultimate gospel and message--to _me_, my good God!_Drink Roboral!_
I was put into such a passion of rage by this blatant ribaldry, whichaffected me like the laughter of a skeleton, that I rushed from the car,with the intention, I believe, of seeking stones to stone it: but nostones were there: and I had to stand impotently enduring that rape ofmy eyes, its victoriously-dogged iteration, its taunting leer, itsDrink Roboral--D, R, I, N, K R, O, B, O, R, A, L.
It was one of those electrical spelling-advertisements, worked by asmall motor commutator driven by a works-motor, and I had now set itgoing: for on some night before that Sabbath of doom the chemist musthave set it to work, but finding the works abandoned, had not troubledto shut it down again. At any rate, this thing stopped my work for thatday, for when I went to shut down the works it was night; and I drove tothe place which I had made my home in sullen and weary mood: for I knewthat Roboral would not cure the least of all my sores.
* * * * *
The next morning I awoke in quite another frame of mind, disposed toidle, and let things go. After rising, dressing, washing in cold dilutedrose-water, and descending to the _salle-a-manger_, where I had laid mymorning-meal the previous evening, I promenaded an hour the only one ofthese long sombrous tufted corridors in which there were not more thantwo dead, though behind the doors on either hand, all of which I hadlocked, I knew that they lay in plenty. When I was warmed, I again wentdown, looked into my motor, got three cylinders from one of a number ofmotors standing near, lit up, and drove away--to Woolwich, as I thoughtat first: but instead of crossing the river by Blackfriars, I went moreeastward; and having passed from Holborn into Cheapside, which wasimpassable, unless I crawled, was about to turn, when I noticed aphonograph-shop: into this I got by a side-door, suddenly seized byquite a curiosity to hear what I might hear. I took a good one withmicrophone diaphragm, and a number of record-cylinders in abrass-handled box, and I put them into the car, for there was still avery strong peach-odour in this closed shop, which displeased me. I thenproceeded southward and westward through by-streets, seeking someprobable house into which to go from the rough cold winds, when I sawthe Parliament-house, an
d thither, turning river-ward by WestminsterHall to Palace Yard, I went, and with my two parcels, one weighting eacharm, walked into this old place along a line of purple-dusted busts; Ideposited my boxes on a table beside a massive brass thing lying there,which, I suppose, must be what they called the Mace; and I sat to hear.
Unfortunately, the phonograph was a clock-work one, and when I wound it,it would not go: so that I got very angry at my absurdity in notbringing an electric mechanism, as I could with much less trouble haveput in a chemical than cleaned the clock-work; and this thing put meinto such a rage, that I nearly tore it to pieces, and was half forkicking it: but there was a man sitting in an old straight-backed chairquite near me, which they called the Speaker's Chair, who was in such apose, that he had, every time I glanced suddenly at him, precisely theair of bending forward with interest to watch what I was doing, aMohrgrabim kind of man, almost black, with Jewish nose, crinkled hair,keffie, and flowing robe, probably, I should