The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

t he used once or twice in his life, a

y from Gogol, and that equivocal

ddresses a total stranger, "will you oblige me by putting your hand

Syme saw it lying on the table, he woke up again to the world outside him. For although the card lay at the other extreme of the table, and he could read nothing of the i

oland, are you prepared in the presence of that card to

ercial and somewhat cockney voice coming out of that forest of foreign hair.

lly understand your p

ir cop. All I say is, I don't believe any Pole

accent to be inimitable, though I shall practise it in

off the whole of his shaggy head-covering, emerging with

I like you. The consequence is that it would annoy me for just about two and a half minutes if I heard that you had died in torments. Well, if you ever tell

ith an air of perfect nonchalance. Yet the astonished Syme was able to realise that this ease was suddenly assumed;

his watch, which like everything about him seemed bigger than it ought to be.

rned to him with

sharply, "to discuss further the details of

n unobtrusive earthquake. "Leave it as it is. Let Saturd

ost naked nerves of the Secretary. He was one o

ental rule of our society that all plans shall be debated in full council. Of cour

ou'd take your head home and boil it for a turni

red back in a kin

understand-" he be

ail right enough. You fail to understand. Why, you dancing donkey," he roared, rising, "you

ed his way out of the room, shak

such as it was it froze him to the bone. If the last words of the President meant anything, they meant that he had not after all

At last he rose and made his way out of the hotel into Leicester Square. The bright, cold day had grown increasingly colder, and when he came out into the street he was surprised by a few flakes of snow. While he still carried the sword-stick and the rest of Gregory's portable luggage, he had thrown the cloak down and left

w, a man. His top hat was loaded with snow like the hat of Father Christmas, the white drift was rising round his boots and ankles; but it seemed as if nothing could tear him away from the contemplation of the colourless wax doll in dirty evening dress. That any human being should stand in su

omentary fits of rigidity or trance. He was not inclined, however, to feel in this case any very compassionate concern. On the contrary, he rather congratulated himself that the Professor's stroke and his elaborate and limping walk would make it easy to escape from

f the chink of knives and the chatter of foreigners. He remembered that in old days he had imagined that all these harmless and kindly aliens were anarchists. He shuddered, remembering the real thing. But even the shudder had the delightful shame of escape. The wine, the common food, the familiar place, the faces of natural and talkative men, made him almost feel as if the Council of t

the old anarchist Professor over a glass of milk, with his lifted livid face and pendent eyelids. For an instant Syme stood as rigid as the stick he leant

that even such leaden feet could catch me up. One comfort is, with a little brisk walking I can put a man like that as far awa

like a swarm of silver bees. Getting into his eyes and beard, they added their unremitting futility to his already irritated nerves; and by the time that he had come at a swinging pace to the beginning of Fleet Street, he lost patience, and f

l mortal appearances the man had come on foot. But the old man could only walk like a snail, and Syme had walked like the wind. He started up and snatched his stick, half crazy with the contradiction in mere arithmetic, and swung out of the swinging doors, leaving his coffee untasted. An omnibus going to the Bank went

with snow, and under the shadow of its brim the short-sighted face and shaky shoulders of Professor de Worms.

was helpless, that he was in the last imbecility of the body. He moved by inches, he let himself down with little gasps of caution. And yet, unless the phi

t the wintry sky, that grew gloomier every moment, he ran down the

thoroughfares; and by the time that he had completed about twenty alternate angles and described an unthinkable polygon, he paused to listen for any sound of pursuit. There was none; there could not in any case have been much, for the little streets were thick with the soundless snow. Somewhere behind Red Lion Court, however, he noticed a place where some energetic citizen had cleared aw

e was no little window or any kind of eve. He felt a new impulse to break out of this hive of houses, and to get once more into the open and lamp-lit street. Yet he rambled and dodged for a long time before he

e heaven the whole atmosphere of the city was turned to a very queer kind of green twilight, as of men under the sea. The sealed and sullen sunset behind the dark dome of St. Paul's had in it smoky and sinister colours-colours of sickly green, dead red or decaying bronze, that were just bright enough to emphasise the solid whiteness of the snow. But right up against these dreary colours rose the black b

shadow, was creeping quickly or slo

ight have captured heaven, but they had not yet captured the cross. He had a new impulse to tear out the secret of this dancing, jumpi

o went a crooked mile." He really looked as if he had been twisted out of shape by the tortuous streets he had been threading. He came nearer and nearer, the lamplight shining on his lifted spectacles, his lifted, patient face. Syme

ss and a burst of boyish derision. He made a wild gesture as if to knock the old man's hat off, called out something like "Catch me if you can," and went racing away across the white, open Circus. Concealment was impossible now; and looking back over his shoulder

he had ever known. Then Syme broke away towards the river, and ended almost down by the docks. He saw the yellow panes of a low, lighted public-hous

entered the place, sat down carefu