Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen The Six Philosophers

Six drenched detectives walked across green fields and through flowering hedges to a distance of five miles from the City of London.An optimist among them suggested at first that they should follow the balloon across the south of England in a carriage, but he was finally convinced that the balloon would never fly along the road, and the coachman sternly refused to follow the balloon.As a result, these irritated but indefatigable travelers made their way through black bushes and field after field until each of them looked less than a vagabond.The green hills of Surrey had seen the tragedy of the final breakdown of the superb light gray suit Syme had worn from Sevron Park.His silk cap was torn apart by swaying branches, his garment was torn from hem to shoulder by entangled thorns, and the mud of England spattered his collar, but he still stood yellow with silent and furious determination. His beard moved forward, his eyes still fixed on the floating balloon, which looked like a tinted cloud in the red light of the sunset.

"After all," he said, "it's beautiful!" "It's queer and unbelievably beautiful!" said the professor. "I hope the dreadful balloon will explode!" "No," said Dr. Bull, "I hope it doesn't. That might hurt the old fellow." "Hurting him!" said the professor angrily, "hurting him! Why don't I get on the balloon and beat him up. Little Xuelian!" "Somehow, I don't want him to get hurt," Dr. Bull said. "What!" cried the secretary in agony. "Do you believe the story about him sitting in the dark room among our own? Sunday could have said he was anyone."

"I don't know if I believe it," said Dr. Bull, "but it doesn't do what I mean. I can't hope that Sunday's balloon exploded because—" "Well," said Syme impatiently, "for what?" "Well, because he's like a happy balloon," said Dr. Bull desperately. "The idea that he sent us blue cards, I don't understand. It seems to make all the sense. But I don't mind who understands that, I always have sympathy for Sunday, even though he is evil. But He's like a giant bouncing baby. How do I explain my weird sympathy? It doesn't stop me from fighting him to the death! If I say I like him because he's fat, I Should this be brought out?"

"You don't have to," said the secretary. "Now I see," cried Bull, "that it's because he's so fat and so light, like a balloon. We always think fat people are bulky, but he can dance with a fair lady. I see now my Meaning. Moderate strength is revealed in violence, and greatest strength is revealed in frivolity. It’s like the old conjecture—if an elephant could jump into the sky like a grasshopper, then what would happen?” "Our elephant," said Syme, looking up, "has jumped up like a grasshopper." "Somehow," concluded Bull, "that's why I can't help liking Sunday. No, it's not a glorification of strength, or any stupid thing like that. There's a joy in this thing, Like he's going to explode with some kind of good news. Have you ever felt that on a spring day? You know nature plays tricks too, but anyway, they'll prove to be well-intentioned tricks someday. I never watch Bible, but the part they laugh at is true, 'Why jump, you mountains?' These mountains do jump - at least, they try to... Why do I like Sundays? ... How can I tell you? ... Because he's such a rough man."

There was a long silence, and then the secretary said in a tense, curious voice: "Y'all don't understand Sunday. Maybe it's because you guys are kinder than I am and don't understand hell. I was a fanboy at the time, and a little bit from the start. Morbid. The one who sat in the dark and chose us all, he chose me because I had all the crazy looks of a conspirator—because even when I smiled, my smile was distorted, my The eyes are sad. There must be something about me that hits all these anarchist nerves. When I first met Sunday, what he told me was not your frivolous energy, but your serious vulgarity and patheticness I found him smoking in a twilight room, the brown shutters of which had been drawn, which made the whole room much more depressing than our host's perennial surroundings. He sat on a bench, a great bulk, Dark and sickly. He listened to me, and he said nothing and did not move. I poured out my most earnest requests and asked my most persuasive questions. Then, after a long silence , the guy started shaking, I think it was some hidden disease causing the shaking, shaking like a damn chamber pot in use. It reminded me of all the basic substances I read as the origin of life —abyssal lumps and protoplasm, like the final form of matter, the ugliest and most scandalous form. From his quivering, I can only tell myself that this at least shows that such a monster can also suffer. Then, I Suddenly seeing this gigantic beast trembling and laughing alone, and he was laughing at me. Do you ask me to forgive him for that? It's no small thing to be laughed at by something vulgar and stronger than you."

"You fellows must be talking wildly," interposed Inspector Ratcliffe crisply, "Sunday was a dreadful fellow who challenged our intellect, but physically he wasn't a Barnum's monster ( Barnum's freak), he received me in an ordinary office, wearing a brown plaid jacket, it was broad daylight. He talked to me in a very normal way. But I will tell you, the creepy place on Sunday .His house and clothes are neat, and everything seems to be in order; but he is absent-minded. Sometimes, his big bright eyes are dimmed, and for hours he forgets that you are there. Now absent-mindedness comes to a bad man. Saying, kinda too bad. We think a bad guy should be vigilant. We can't imagine a bad guy who is sincerely daydreaming because we can't imagine a bad guy who is alone. An absent minded guy means a kind guy ...meaning, he apologizes to you when he meets you unexpectedly. But how can you put up with an inattentive guy who kills you when he meets you unexpectedly? Absentmindedness and cruelty mixed together can be torturous It's a nerve. People sometimes feel this way when they pass through a primeval forest, and they feel that the animals are both innocent and cruel. They can ignore these animals, or they can kill them. How do you like to be with an absent-minded The tigers spent ten damn hours together in the living room?"

"What do you think of Sunday, Gogol?" Syme asked. "Basically what I know about Sunday," Gogol said succinctly, "is no more than what I feel when I look at the sun at noon." "That's an opinion, yes," said Syme thoughtfully. "What do you think, Professor?" The professor was walking forward with his head down and dragging his cane. He didn't answer. "Wake up, Professor!" said Syme kindly. "Tell us what you think of Sunday." The professor finally spoke slowly. "I think of something," he said, "that I can't quite articulate. Or, I think of a thing that I can't even think clearly. But here's the thing. My young life, as you know , a bit too presumptuous and debauched."

"Well, when I first saw Sunday's face, I thought it was too big—everyone thought so, and I thought it was too slack. The face was so big that people couldn't see it or put it in. It's a face. The eyes are so far from the nose that it doesn't look like eyes. The mouth is so big that people think it's a whole. All of that is hard to tell." He paused, still tugging at his cane, and went on— "But let's put it this way. Walking in the street at night, I see a lamp, a lighted window, and a cloud make up the most complete and unmistakable face. If there is such a face in heaven, I'd know him again. But when I went a little farther, I realized there was no face, the window was ten yards away, the lamp was a thousand yards away, and the cloud was far from the world. Hey, I didn't get a good look at Sunday's face, his face swayed from side to side, like a picture I had inadvertently seen moving away from me. So, at least his face made me wonder if there really was a face. I don't know if your face, Bull, is a face or a proper combination. Maybe your hideous pair of glasses with one black lens close and the other fifty miles away. Oh, a materialist Doubt is not worth a load of crap. Sunday taught me the last and worst doubt, the doubt of a spiritualist. I guess I am a buddhist, and Buddhism is not a belief, it is a doubt. I have pity And dear Bull, I don't think you actually have a face. I don't have enough faith to believe in matter."

Syme's eyes were still fixed on the floating balloon, which was red with the night light and looked like a better and purer world. "In your narratives," he said, "have you noticed a strange phenomenon? Each of you has discovered a different Sunday, and yet each of you can compare it to only one thing—the universe itself. Boole found him like the earth in spring, and Gogol found him like the sun at noon. The secretary thought of the ugly protoplasm, and the inspector thought of the undeveloped virgin forest. The professor said he was like the ever-changing landscape. This It's weird, but what's even weirder is that I have my own weird idea of ​​Sunday, and I've found that my idea of ​​Sunday is like my idea of ​​the whole world."

"Speak a little faster, Syme," said Bull, "don't mind the balloon." "When I first saw Sunday," said Syme slowly, "I only saw his back, and when I saw his back, I knew he was the worst man in the world. He The neck and shoulders were savage, and the head was almost inhuman when bent down, like a cow with its head bowed. In fact, I immediately thought with disgust that it was not a man, but a beast in a man's costume." "Go on," said Dr. Bull. "Then something strange happened. I saw his back from the street as he was sitting on the balcony. Then I went into the restaurant and went around him on the other side and saw his sunny face. His The face frightens me as it frightens everyone, but not because it is savage or evil. On the contrary, it frightens me because it is so beautiful and so kind."

"Sam," cried the secretary, "are you sick?" "It was like the face of some old archangel, who did justice to the great war. The eyes were smiling, and the mouth was full of glory and sorrow. The white-haired, gray-clothed The broad shoulders are the same as I see him from the back. But when I look at him from behind, I'm sure he's a beast; when I look at him from the front, I know he's a god." "Pan," said the professor quietly, "is both a god and a beast." "And then, again, and all the time," continued Syme, as if to himself, "that Sunday was a mystery to me, and a mystery to the world. When I saw that terrible back, I believed that A noble face is but a mask. When I look at that face, I know his back is just a joke. The bad guys are so bad that we have to think the good guys are accidents; the good guys are so good that we There are reasons to be sure of villains. But yesterday the whole thing came to a head when I chased Sunday in a carriage and kept on his heels." "Did you have time to think at the time?" Ratcliffe asked. "Time," answered Syme, "has given me a dreadful thought. It occurred to me then that the back of his unconscious, empty head was his face—a frightful eyeless face staring at me!" And it occurred to me that the man running away in front of me was a man running backwards and dancing as he went." "Terrible!" said Dr. Bull, trembling. "Not terrible," said Syme. "It was just about the worst moment of my life. But ten minutes later, when he stuck his head out of the wagon and made faces like a freak, I knew he was like a father playing hide-and-seek with his kids." "It's too long a game," said the secretary, frowning at his battered boots. "Listen," said Syme with unnatural emphasis, "shall I tell you all the secrets of the world? We only know the backside of the world. We see everything from the backside, and we see the savagery. That's not a tree , that's the back of the tree. That's not a cloud, that's the back of a cloud. Don't you see everything stoops and hides its face? If we can only go around the front—" "Look!" cried Bull, "the balloon is going down!" Syme need not hear him, for his eyes were fixed on the balloon.He saw the huge ball swaying in the air suddenly, corrected its posture, and then slowly fell behind the woods like the setting sun. Gogol, who had said little during their tedious journey, suddenly raised his hands. "He's dead!" he cried, "and now I understand that he was my friend—my friend in the dark!" "Dead!" the secretary snorted contemptuously. "You won't find him dead that easily. If he falls out of the balloon pod, we'll see him rolling in the field like a colt." , and kicked his legs with joy." "And bang his hooves," said the professor. "The foal does, and Pan did." "Pan again!" said Dr. Bull angrily. "You seem to think that Pan is everything." "He is everything," said the professor, "in Greek. He means everything." "Don't forget," said the secretary, head down, "he means panic, too." Syme stood there, not listening to a word they had to say. "It fell over there," he said quickly. "Let's catch up to it!" Then he made an inexplicable gesture and added: "Oh, he might play dead to trick us! It seems to be one of his games." He strode out into the distant woods with renewed strength, his tattered clothes and rags fluttering in the wind.The others followed him, their feet hurt even more, and their hearts became more suspicious.Almost at the same time, the six people realized that they were not alone in this small field. A tall man was coming towards them across the grass, leaning on a strange long stick like a scepter, wearing a well-made but old-fashioned suit and knee-length shorts, the color was somewhere between blue, violet and gray. In between, this can be seen in some shady parts of the woodland.His hair was gray, but at first glance, with his knee-length shorts, it looked powdered.His steps were quiet, but as far as the silver frost on his head was concerned, he might have been an oddity in the woods. "Gentlemen," said he, "my master has arranged for a carriage to meet you in the next road." "Who's your master?" asked Syme, standing still. "I'm told you know his name," the man said respectfully. After a moment of silence, the secretary spoke—— "When did this carriage wait here?" "It only waited a moment," said the stranger. "My master has just arrived home." Syme looked left and right at the green field in which he stood.The hedges were ordinary hedges, and the trees were ordinary trees, but he felt as if he had fallen into fairyland. He looked the mysterious messenger up and down, but found nothing, except that his clothes were exactly the color of this shade of purple, and his face was exactly the color of the red, brown, and gold sky. "Show us the way," said Syme curtly.Then, without a word, the man in the violet coat turned around, walked towards a gap in the hedge, and suddenly there appeared a white road. When the six wanderers came to the avenue, they saw that the white road was blocked by a long line of carriages, which seemed to block the passage to some house in Park Lane.On one side of these carriages stood a row of well-dressed servants, all in gray-blue uniforms, and all of them had an air of dignity and privilege which belonged not to some ordinary gentleman's servant, but to a Officials and envoys of a great king.There were at least half a dozen carriages waiting, one for each of the ragged and distressed six, it seemed.All the squires (all seemed to be in court livery) wore swords, and when they got into the carriage, the squires drew their swords and saluted, the swords shining with steel brilliance. "What does it all mean?" Bull asked Syme as they parted. "Is this another Sunday joke?" "I don't know," said Syme, sitting wearily on the cushions in the buggy. "If it's a joke, it's one of the ones you've ever told. It'll be a good one." The six adventurers had been through a lot, but none excited them as much as this final journey of comfort.They were both used to wild experiences, and the sudden comfort made them all bewildered.They could not even imagine for a moment what these carriages meant, but they knew perfectly well that they were carriages, and carriages with cushions at that.They could not imagine who the old man was, who was leading them, but they knew perfectly well that he was leading them to the carriage. Syme rode through the shadowy woods in a state of total wildness.It was his way of doing it, and when his bearded chin thrust forward violently long enough to do anything, he collapsed on the cushion when the whole thing slipped out of his control. Gradually he became vaguely aware that the carriage had taken him on various roads.He saw them pass the stone gate that looked like a park, and began to slowly climb a mountain, which was covered with trees on both sides, which seemed more orderly than the forest.Then there began in him the liking for everything that comes in a man who wakes slowly from a sound sleep.He felt that a hedge was what a hedge should be, a living wall.Hedges are like an army, strictly disciplined but more active.He saw the tall elms behind the hedge and wondered vaguely how happy the climbing boy would be.Then, as his carriage turned a corner in the lane, he saw suddenly in the stillness a long, low house that looked approachable in the soft sunset light.The six friends then exchanged opinions and quarreled, but they all agreed that, for some inexplicable reason, the place reminded them of their childhood.It's not because of this elm tree top, it's because of that winding path; it's not because of this orchard, it's because of the shape of that window.Each of them declared that he had remembered the place before he could remember his mother. When the wagons at last came to a large, low, cavernous doorway, another man in the same uniform but with a silver star pinned to the gray chest of his coat came out to meet them.The handsome man said to the bewildered Syme: "Refreshments are ready for you in your room." In dreamlike astonishment, Syme followed the respectful page up the great oak staircase.He walked into an opulent suite that seemed specially designed for him, and with the usual class instincts went to the long mirror to straighten his bow tie and smooth his hair.Now he saw himself horribly—blood streaming from his face where a branch had cut him, his hair bristling like a thick yellow weed, his clothes ripped into long, dangling rags .At the same time, questions arise, such as how he got here and how he will leave later.At this time, the man in blue clothes who was designated as his personal servant said to him seriously: "I have fetched your clothes, sir." "Clothes!" sneered Syme. "I don't have any clothes but these." He pulled up two long strips of the gown, which already had a charming fringe, and did a ballerina's twirl. . "My master asked me to tell you," said the page, "that there is a masquerade tonight, and he would like you to wear the costume I have presented. In the meantime, sir, a bottle of claret and some cold Pheasant, he hopes you will not refuse. There are still a few hours before supper." "Cold pheasant is a good thing," said Syme thoughtfully, "and claret is a refreshing good thing. But really, I'd rather know what it all means than either, you What kind of clothes are laid out for me. Where are the clothes?" From an upholstered chair, the servant picked up a peacock-blue pleated dress resembling a hooded fancy cape, adorned on the front with a huge golden sun and dotted here and there with fiery stars and crescents. "You should be dressed as Thursday, sir," said the valet kindly. "Dressed up like Thursday!" said Syme thoughtfully. "It doesn't sound like a very warm dress." "Oh, sir," said the servant eagerly, "this Thursday's suit is quite warm, sir. It can be tied up to the chin." "Well, I don't understand anything," said Syme, with a sigh, "I'm used to hard adventures, so comfort would surprise me. And, I'd like to ask you why I'm dressed like Thursday, Why put on a costume that is full of sun and moon. I think these celestial bodies shine on other days too. I remember one time I saw the moon on a Tuesday." "Excuse me, sir," said the valet, "we have a Bible for you too." Then, respectfully and stiffly, he pointed to a passage in the first chapter of Genesis.Syme read with wonder.Indeed, the fourth day of the week was the day the sun and moon were created.However, they calculated from the Christian Sunday. "It's getting crazy," said Syme, sitting in his chair. "Who are these people who offer cold pheasant and claret and blue clothes and Bibles? Do they offer everything?" "Yes, sir, everything," said the page seriously, "let me help you dress, will you?" "Oh, put it on!" said Syme impatiently. Despite his feigned disdain for the ridiculous ceremony, he felt an inexplicable freedom and ease in his manner when the blue-and-gold garment fell on him.It sparked a childhood dream in him when he discovered that he would also wear a sword.When he came out of the room, he shook the folds of his clothes with a shake of his shoulders, his sword slanting forward, like a pompous bard.These camouflages are not hiding anything, they are exposing.

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