Chapter 8 Chapter 1 The Changed World

Fate played tricks on the world in its new way for twenty years.For the vast majority of people, new things come in little by little, day by day, enough to be noticeable, but not so sudden that they panic.But, for at least one person, the full effect of the divine food accumulated during these two decades was suddenly and amazingly revealed in one day.It is convenient, therefore, for our purposes, to describe his history, and to give some account of what he saw. The man was a prisoner, a life-prisoner--what crimes he has committed we do not care--and after the year the law saw fit to pardon him.One summer morning the poor prisoner--he had left society a young man of twenty-three--was now pushed out of the gray monotony of drudgery and prison which had become his life, into In the freedom that is too bright to open your eyes.Putting on the unfamiliar clothes that people gave him, his hair has been left for several weeks and combed separately for several days.He stood there with a new sense of humbleness and clumsiness in his body and mind, his eyes were blinking, and his heart was indeed shaking.He came out, trying to understand the unbelievable that he was finally back in the world, and he was not at all prepared for all the other unbelievable things.He was lucky to have a brother who valued the long shared memory enough to come to pick him up and shake his hand - the brother who was a toddler when he left and is now a thriving bearded man - the faces of each other are vaguely similar, and they are no longer familiar with each other.He entered the city of Dover together with this strange Xin family, and they didn't talk much with each other, but they felt a lot.

They sat for a while at the hotel, one asking the other this question, asking about this and that person, all retaining strange old opinions, ignoring the endless new scenes of new situations; then, at the upper station Time to take the train to London.Their names and the private affairs they have to talk about have nothing to do with our story, but the changes and all the oddities that the poor returned man found in the once-familiar world. He paid little attention to Dover itself, save for the good beer in the tin mug—beer he had never had before, and it brought tears to his eyes. "The beer is as good as ever," he said, convinced it was much better.

It was only when the train chugged past Folkestone that he was able to look beyond the emotions of the moment and see what was going on in the world.He looks out of the window. "Big eyes", he has said it for the twelfth time. "The weather couldn't be better."Then, for the first time, he discovered a curious disproportion in the world. "For God's sake," he cried, sitting up, angry for the first time, "There's a big gorse growing on that slope. Is it a gorse? Or, I've forgotten?" But they were thistles, and what he took for great gorse bushes were but a new grass.And inside these, a troop of British soldiers—in red uniforms as usual—drilled an encounter according to drill code.This manual was partially revised after the Poer War.Then, the train slammed into the tunnel and arrived at the Sarin Interchange Station.The place is dark now, although all the lights are on.But from one of the nearby gardens a gigantic rhododendron bush covered the valley and buried the station.A freight train was parked on the sideline of the Shamen, and the rhododendron stalk logs were loaded high.It was here that the returned citizen first heard of "God's Food."

【① Battle of Poel: A decisive battle in England's conquest of Ireland, in which the British army was defeated. 】 When they picked up speed again and came to the countryside that seemed to have not changed at all, the two brothers were still struggling to discuss.One is a silly question that is full of eagerness to find out; the other has never bothered to think about such simple and self-evident facts, and always speaks in vague and incomprehensible words. "That's the 'God Food' thing," he said, his knowledge now at the end of the spectrum. "Don't know? They didn't tell you—no one? 'God Eater'! You know—'God Eater'. The whole election revolves around it. Kind of a science thing. No one ever told you?"

He thought his brother was in prison so he didn't even know that, and he was a fool, asking questions and answering each other, and staring out of the window between these fragments of conversation.At first, the interest of this newly released prisoner in things was vague and general.His imagination has been busy trying to figure out what that old so-and-so would say, what that old so-and-so looks like; what he should say about various things to soften his isolation; It was like a paradox in the newspaper, and then became a rescuer for his brother when his knowledge was lacking.Now, God Food has stubbornly invaded every topic he starts talking about.

In those days the world was a patchwork mishmash of transformations.Thus this new great fact presented itself to him in a series of astonishing contrasts.The process of change is not one-size-fits-all; it spreads out from here and there, from centers of diffusion.The places where the divine food had permeated the air and soil were scattered and spread by contact, and large areas were still awaiting its arrival; the fields became like patches, piece by piece.It's new bold themes sneaking in old venerable compositions. The contrast along the line from Dover to London at that time was striking indeed.For a while the country they rode through was as it had been in their childhood, small rectangular fields surrounded by hedges so small that only ponies could plow them, country lanes as wide as three wagons, elms.Fields dotted with oaks and poplars, clumps of willows by the creek, haystacks no higher than a giant's knee, little dollhouses with windows shining like diamonds, brick yards, rambling country streets, small The mansion, the railway embankment with its wildflowers, the railway station with its gardens, all these vanished little things of the nineteenth century still hold out against the "giant".Here and there a wind-blown giant thistle overwhelms the lord; here and there a ten-foot puffball, or a stalk of giant grass that winds around; but that's all, It is showing the coming of the god food.

For a forty-mile radius, nothing else foreshadowed in any way the prodigious size of the wheat and weeds, which were less than a dozen miles from the railroad line, just beyond the knoll in the Valley of the Star Abley.Then, the effects of God's Food began to appear.The first thing to catch the eye was the Viaduct at Tonbridge, the result of the flooding of the ancient highway by the lately beginning swamps (caused by a gigantic variety of a plant).Then came the small villages, and then more and more traces of the gigantism that people resisted so much came into view. In the south-east of the City of London then, around where Cossar and his children lived, God-food was already mysteriously rebelling in a hundred things; only their growth, and the slow parallel growth corresponding to their existence, make them less alarming.But the long-lost citizen saw for the first time the effects of this strange and preponderant divine food, patched and darkened regions, great forts and positions, barracks and arsenals, never seen before, These are imposed upon human life by that subtle and unrelenting influence.

Here, on a larger scale, the experience of the first experimental farm was repeated.It has happened to the low and accidental things of life--underfoot and in remote places, irregularly and independently of each other--this is the beginning of the arrival of a new force and its new products. notice.In the great stinking yards and gardens, where thickets of invincible weeds grew and were used as fuel for the gigantic machines (the kind of Gorden Gorden greasy that little Londoners pay sixpence to see the machines) There are roads and tracks for big motorcycles and vehicles-a road woven with unusually "fat" cannabis, and there are towers equipped with sirens that can be sounded at any time to warn the world of a new vermin, and, curiously enough, the venerable church steeple is conspicuously fitted with mechanical alarms.There are also some refuge huts and sentry boxes painted red, each with a rifle range of 300 yards, and the soldiers use soft bullets to practice shooting at targets in the shape of giant rats every day.

There have been six infestations of giant rats since the Skinners' time - each time from the gutters of South West London, and their existence is now accepted, just as tigers are accepted in the Calcutta Delta. Same. The man's brother casually bought a newspaper in Sarin, and it finally caught the attention of the newly released. He turned over the pages he was not familiar with—feeling that they were a little smaller and more numerous than before, and the typefaces were also arranged differently—and he found that he was facing countless photos, and the things in the photos made it impossible not to be interested; Columns and columns of articles, most of the titles are incomprehensible, as if speaking in a foreign language-"Mr. Caterham's Great Speech";

"God Eater". "Who is this Caterham?" he asked, wanting to talk. "He's not bad," his brother replied. "Oh, a politician, eh?" "Trying to bring down the government. Great timing." "Oh"!he wondered. "I guess I've known about this kind of thing in the past—Minister, Rosebery—all that kind of stuff—what?" His brother was holding him by the wrist, and pointing out the window. "That's Brother Kosar!" The eyes of the released man followed the direction of the finger and saw—— "My God!" he exclaimed, genuinely stunned for the first time.The newspaper fell between the feet and was forever forgotten.He could see very clearly through the trees, a huge figure at full forty feet standing casually, legs wide apart, clutching a ball and about to throw it.The figure was clad in a white metal weave with a wide steel belt that glistened in the sun.It attracted all attention for a moment, and then was drawn by another giant at a distance, standing ready to catch the ball. Obviously, the whole area of ​​​​the great basin surrounded by mountains to the north of Sevenoaks has been blurred. Got to be gigantic.

A colossal fort jutted above the lime kilns, and out of it stood a great house, a gigantic squat building in the Egyptian style, built by Cossar for his sons after his mission in the giant nursery. built.There's a big black shed behind the house, big enough to fit in a cathedral, and from it shoots bursts of fiery white light, and from the shed comes the sound of the hammering of Hercules against your eardrum.Then, when the large wooden ball hooped with a hurricane flew from his hand, his attention returned to the giant.The two stood there watching.The ball was as big as a vat. "Catch!" shouted the man from the prison, and a tree blocked the thrower.The train saw these things only for a minute, and then went through the Chiselhurst Tunnel behind the woods. "my God"!When darkness enveloped them, said Ren Yi, who had come out of the prison. "What! Is that guy as tall as a house?" "That's Brother Cossar Jr.," said his brother, with a gesture of his head--"all these troubles." Once again they found more towers equipped with alarms, more small red houses, and clusters of exurban villas.Posters made good use of the space between them, from innumerable tall notice boards, from the gables of houses, from fences and everywhere available, there were colorful announcements about the grand election on the theme of "God Food". appeal. "Catham," "God Eater," "Jack the Iron Fist," over and over again, the vast caricatures and distorted drawings that made the splendor of those who had passed so far only minutes before Hundreds of different deformation depictions. The brother's original plan was to make a very grand gesture to celebrate this return to life.First a supper at some restaurant of indisputable quality, and then a concert hall for the succession of brilliant impressions it was then so good at giving.It was an admirable plan, aimed at wiping away with this free-spirited leisure the lesser parts of the prison's traces; but, when it came to the second project, the plan changed." To have supper, and yet have a stronger desire than a play, which has more effectually diverted the man's mind from the harshness of the past than any theater could ever do, is a kind of The "God Food" and the children who eat "God Food" are full of curiosity and confusion about this new weird giant that seems to rule the world. "What's going on? ’ he said, ‘I really don’t understand. His brother was considerate enough to change even a well-planned plan of hospitality. "This evening is yours, dear brother." He said, "We will find a way to include the People's Palace to participate in the conference." " Fortunately for this man who came out of prison, he finally squeezed into the crowded crowd, looking at the organ in the distance and the brightly lit dais under the gallery.The organist was playing something just now, causing people who flocked into the hall to slam their boots, but now they have calmed down. The man from the prison had just taken his place, and had just finished arguing with a stranger who was elbowing and pestering, when Caterham came out.He walked from the shadows to the center of the podium. He was really the most unremarkable little dwarf. From a distance, he was just a small black shadow with a little red on his face—his eagle could be seen quite clearly from the side. Hooked Nose—such a small person, but it caused a burst of cheers.Really puzzling.The cheers started on the side close to him, then increased and spread to the whole audience.At first, it was just some small voices on the side of the podium, but suddenly it increased suddenly, involving all the human beings inside and outside the hall.How much fun it is to hear them yell!Ulla!Ulla! Among the countless crowds, no one shouted as happily as those who just got out of prison.Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he only stopped when he shouted hoarse at last.You'd have to be in jail as long as he was to understand, or even begin to understand, what it meant to be a man who shouted in public. (But for all that, he doesn't even claim to know what the emotion is for).Ulla!Ah, God! — Hurrah! Then there was silence.Caterham waited patiently.Some of the lower ranks were speaking inaudible high-sounding nonsense, as if one hears something among the clatter of leaves in spring. "Wah-wah--" What are you talking about, the audience whispered to each other. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa—" The thing was still ringing.Is there no end to this gray-haired idiot?disturb?Of course they were bothering. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—" Can we hear Caterham better? Fortunately, during this period of time, there is still Caterham to watch, and you can stand and study the face of that great man in the distance.The man is so easy to draw, the world has seen from lampposts, chimneys, and children's plates, and anti-spirit medals, and anti-spirit flags, and Caterham's silk, cotton selvage, and the lining of dear old English Caterham hats. Come study him at your leisure.His image filled all the caricatures of the time.You can see him as a sailor, standing in front of an old cannon, holding a poker that reads "God Food New Way" written on it, while the huge, ugly, scary monster, God Food, bobs and rolls in the sea ; or he is in full armor, with the cross of St. George on shield and helmet, a cowardly huge Kelly's spot.sits among the many blasphemies at the mouth of a dreadful cave, and bows his head before his gauntlet that reads "The New Law of God's Food"; or he descends from heaven like Perseus, from a A beautiful Andromeda in chains was rescued from the hands of a writhing sea monster ("Civilization" was clearly written on her girdle). Many of the sea monsters had "Godless" written on their necks and claws. "," Trample all egoism," "Mechanics," "Deformations," and the like.However, it is precisely because of the extremely correct evaluation of Caterham's "Jack with the Iron Hand" in the public imagination, and it is precisely because of the rendering of the "Iron-Wrist-Jack-Jack" poster that the man who came out of prison The figure in the distance was enlarged. [① Caliban: A half-orc monster in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", the son of the devil and the witch. 】 【② Perseus: The son of Jupiter, the Greek god of heaven, who once rescued the Ethiopian princess Andromeda from the monster. 】 All of a sudden, the "wow wow wow wow" stopped. He's finally done.He sat down. It's him!no!yes!It's Caterham! "Caterham!" followed by a burst of cheers. It takes a crowd to find such a silence after chaotic cheers.Alone in the wilderness—a silence, no doubt, but he could hear himself breathing, he could hear himself moving, he could hear all kinds of sounds.Here, however, Caterham's voice was the only thing audible, clear and distinct, like a spark burning in the black velvet depths.Listen, really!Listen, it's like he's talking next to you. The gesticulating little figure was placed in a round of plump and swaying sound. Behind the podium were some of his supporters, some of whom could not be seen clearly. The vast and boundless focus, this scene had a great impact on the man who had just been released from prison.The little figure in the distance seemed to absorb the whole body and mind of them all. Caterham spoke of our ancient institutions. "Yes, yes, yes!" the crowd roared. "Yes! Yes!" cried the man from the prison. He spoke of our ancient spirit of order and justice. "Yes, yes, yes!" shouted the crowd. "Yes! Yes!" cried the man from the prison, much moved. He referred to the wisdom of our ancestors, to the slow formation of spiritual and social traditions and ancient, respectable institutions, which suited the English national character as the skin fits the hand. "Yes! Yes!" the man from the prison groaned, with tears of excitement on his face, but now all this will be thrown into the sky.Yes, throw it out of the sky!It's just that three people in London twenty years ago thought it would be fun to bottle up some indeterminate thing, all order and sanctity of things—crying "No! No!"—yes, if you don't want that , everyone has to cheer up, and has to say goodbye to indecision--a burst of cheers broke out at this point.We have to say goodbye to indecision and incompleteness. "We've heard, gentlemen," cried Caterham, "that the zums became giant zums. At first they were no different from other zums—a small plant that a strong hand could Grasp it and twist it off; but if you leave it alone—if you leave it alone, it will grow, so fast and so big that at last you have to use a rope knife to saw, and you have to risk your hands and feet and even your life. To strain, to bear the pain—this feeling will kill, it will kill!" There was a commotion among the crowd, and there was a pause. Then, the man from the prison heard Caterham's voice again, ringing out loud and clear: "Learn from 'God Food' how to deal with 'God Food'—" He paused—"While there is still time It's not too late, grab your nettles!" He stopped and stood wiping his lips. "That's right," cried someone, "that's right!" And then, again, that strange rapid-fire thunderous confusion, as if the whole world were cheering. The man from the prison came out of the hall at last, in a state of great emotion, with the expression on his face of those who see ghostly visions. He got it, everyone got it, his views were no longer vague. He came back to the world in a crisis, at a moment when he needed to make a decisive decision on something astonishing.He must play his part in this great struggle like a manly man--like a free man with a burden on his shoulders. The confrontation was like a painting, on the one hand, those casual, chain-mail giants he saw in the morning"--he saw them completely differently now--; This little black, gesticulating little man, this dwarf with a terrifically pleasing voice, coherent and inflected preaching, John Caterham—"Jack the Iron Hand." They must all unite, "Grab that nettle" before it's "too late". Among the children who ate the food of the gods, the tallest, the strongest, and the most valued were Cosar's three sons.The neighborhood of Sevenoaks, where their boyhood was spent, was now a mile or so of trenches, dug in a mess, full of gratings and gigantic molds for workmanship and everything to suit their developing faculties. Toys make this place unlike any other place in the world.Over time, the place has grown in size for what they want to do.The eldest son was a great designer of engines with wheels, and he made himself a gigantic bicycle, so big that no road in the world could hold it, no bridge could bear it.There it sits, a big thing with wheels and a motor, that goes two hundred and fifty miles an hour.Sometimes he rode it and dashed around the obstacle-filled workshop yard, but was otherwise useless.He'd wanted to use it to get around this little world—that's what he'd built the car for.He was just a kid full of dreams back then.Now, where the enamel had fallen off the spokes of the car, it was rusted crimson like a wound. "You'll have to make a road with it first, boy," Cossar said, "and then you'll be able to travel the world." So one morning at first light the young giant and his brethren set out to build a road round the world.It seemed that they had foreseen the opposition, so they worked with great enthusiasm. The world soon found out that they were building a bullet-straight road to the English Channel, miles paved, paved, and grounded. Before noon they were stopped by an agitated crowd of landowners, land agents, local authorities, lawyers, police, and even soldiers. "We're building a road," explained the oldest child. "No, we are building a road," said the leading lawyer standing on the ground, "but please respect the rights of others. You have violated the private rights of twenty-seven owners; let alone a city council, Nine parish councils, one village council, two gasworks and a railway company concession. "Ah!" said Cossar's second. "You guys have to stop." "But don't you want a good, straight road instead of the narrow ones?" "I'm not saying it's bad, but" "It can't be done anyway," said Cossar's eldest, picking up his tools. "That's not the way to do it," said the lawyer. "It certainly won't work." "Then how do we do it?" The lead lawyer's reply was complex and vague. Cossar also came to see what his children had done, and he reprimanded them sharply, but he also laughed and seemed to be extremely happy at the incident. "You, boys, must wait," he cried, looking back, "before you do such things." "The lawyer told us we had to get a design ready, get a license, and all that crap. Said it would take years." "We'll have a design in a while, little boy," Cossar called out, putting his hand to his mouth. "Don't be afraid. You'd better play around first, and make a model of what you're going to do." Model." They complied like obedient sons. The Cossar boys, however, pondered all this for a while. "It's a good way to play," said the second to the eldest, "but I don't want to play and make plans all the time. I'm going to do something real, you know. We're not in the world to be here A messy little place to play, you know, not to hang out and avoid the city.”—they were banned from entering all county towns and urban areas by then. "It's not good to do nothing. Can't you find something these little people want to do and do it for them—just for fun?" "Many of them don't have suitable houses to live in," said the second child. "We went to the edge of London and built them a house, big enough to go down in piles of people, and built it comfortably and beautifully, and then gave them Make a nice little road to where they go to work - a straight path and make it nice. We make it all so clean and nice that they don't have a People live so dirty and badly like they do now. Water enough for them to wash, and bathrooms—you know, they're filthy, nine out of ten of their houses don't have bathrooms, these filthy Skunks! You know the ones that have bathrooms that spit on the ones that don't, insult them and don't get them one - and call them the 'big unwashed'. You know, let's change that We got them electric lights and stoves and electricity to clean and everything. How strange! They had their women—future mothers—crawling and mopping the floors! We could mess everything up It's beautiful. We can build a dam in the valley in the mountains over there, make a beautiful reservoir, we can build a big place here to generate electricity, and make everything simple, cute, can? In the future, they may Let us do something else." "Yes," said the elder brother, "we can make him very beautiful." "Then do it," said the second child. "I have no objection," said the elder brother, looking around for a convenient tool. And that leads to another horrific dispute. In an instant the excited crowd was upon them, giving them a thousand reasons to stop--no reason at all, to stop anyway--a yelling, chaotic motley crew.The place where they built the house was too high--it couldn't be safe.It's unsightly; it prevents the rental of neighboring decent-sized homes; it spoils the style of the neighborhood; it's incongruous; it contradicts district building regulations; rights; it violates the interests of local water companies. The clerks of the Local Government Council made themselves a judicial obstacle; the junior lawyer reappeared, representing a dozen threatened interests; the local landowners objected; People claimed that they would have to pay outrageously high bribes before they would be willing to unblock it; all construction trade unions made a collective voice; a group of merchants of various building materials also became obstacles.A band of eccentric people bands together with preconceived aesthetic terror to protect the landscape where they're building their big house and the valley they're damming.The Kosar kids thought that last group were the worst asses of all.Their beautiful house was suddenly a walking stick in a hornet's nest. "I will never do it!" said the eldest child. "I can't go on," said the second child. "A bunch of damned little bastards," said the third brother, "we can't do anything!" "It's not even good for them. What a beautiful place we could have made for them." "They seem to spend their stupid little lives getting in each other's way," said the eldest, "rights, laws, regulations, and goddamn things like spells. Well, anyway, they And a little longer in one of their dirty, stupid little houses. Obviously, we can't go on like this." The Cossar children left their unfinished house and left. They just dug the foundation, started building a wall, and retreated to their large yard. After a while, the pit was filled with water, stagnant stagnant water with aquatic plants and vermin, and god food, perhaps scattered by the children of Kosar, perhaps blown by the wind like dust, making the water Everything in it grows abnormally. The water-rats came out and ransacked the quarters, and one day a farmer saw his pigs drinking in the pit, and wisely—for he knew about the Okham landowner's huge fat hog—killed them to death. left. And out of the pit came great mosquitoes, terrible mosquitoes whose only good thing was to stung Cossar's sons so much that they couldn't bear it, so they chose a moonlit night, when the Law and the The regulations all went to bed - drained the water from the pit through the creek and into the river. But they left the big water-weeds and the big water-rats and all those big and popular things untouched, and they still live and live in the place they chose--here, in the nice big house that the little people might have It should have pointed directly at the sky. These were all things that happened to the son there when he was a child, and now they are almost adults.The chains that are placed upon them are drawn tighter and tighter each year as they grow.Every year they grew up, and every year the god food that multiplied the giant's things spread, the tension and pain rose even higher.In the beginning, God's Food was just a distant wonder to the majority of human beings, but now it is approaching the door of every family, threatening, confronting, and distorting the entire order of life.It plugs this, overthrows that, it alters the produce of nature; and by altering the produce of nature, it cuts off the employment of men, leaves hundreds of thousands unemployed, sweeps across borders, and makes the trade The world becomes a flooded world. So it's no wonder humans hate it. At the same time, because it is easier to hate living things than dead things, it is easier to hate animals than plants, and it is more thorough to hate your fellow man than animals.The fear and annoyance aroused by giant hemp and six-foot blades of grass, by dreadful insects and tigerlike vermin, were all concentrated into one violent hatred directed at the scattered giants, the gods. Children of food.This hatred became a central force in political events.The old partisan divides have shifted, completely erased under the persistent pressure of these more recent ones.In the current struggle, one side is the party of the Compromisers, who advocate the control and management of the food by petty politicians; An ominous ambiguity, at first expressing intentions in one set of words, then in another, saying one moment that one must "prune the growing thorns," another that one must find a "cure for the elephant," and finally , on the eve of the election, said people must "catch that nettle". One day Cossar's three sons, who were now grown-ups rather than children, sat among their useless artifacts, talking about them in their own way.Their father told them to repair a huge and complicated network of trenches. They worked all day, and now the sun was setting. The little servant told them to eat. You have to think how massive they were, the smallest one was forty feet tall, lying sideways on what the common man would have thought were reeds.One sat scraping dirt from his huge boots with a girder clutched in his hand; the twenty rested on his elbows; .They don't wear cloth clothes. The underwear is made of rope, and the outer coat is made of blankets woven of aluminum wire; the feet are made of wooden boots nailed with iron, and the buttons, chain rings and belts of the clothes are all galvanized steel plates.They lived in a huge one-story Egyptian-style house, half limestone, half stone from the mountain, with a front a hundred feet high, and behind it chimneys, cars, cranes, and sheds. The roof of the roof rises miraculously into the sky.From one of the round windows of the house a spout could be seen, from which incandescent metal was dripping, measured in unseen receptacles.From the hills on the high ground to the slopes of the valley, the place was surrounded by extremely high earth embankments and steel, and the defenses were hastily fortified.需要用某个普通大小的东西作对比才能意想其规模之大：从塞文欧克斯来的火车轰隆地横过他们的视野，现在又钻进隧道看不见了，相形之下，像是个自动玩具一样。 “他们把易格桑这边所有的树林都圈出去了，”一个说，“把牌子从诺克霍尔德又往这边移了两英里多。” “这是他们最低限度能够做的了，”停了一下最小的一个说，“他们想煞煞卡特汉的威风。” “要煞威风这可不够，但是——我们可受不住了，”第三个说。 “他们是在把我们和雷德伍德兄弟隔离开。上次我去找他时，红布告牌就从两边移进了一英里。他顺着高地出来的路口已经不过是个窄胡同了。”说话的在想着。”我们的弟兄雷德伍德不知道怎么样了？” “真的，”最大的一个说，从他手里的松树上信手砍下一根枝桠。“他就像——就像还没醒过来。我说的话，他好像会没听见。他提到了——爱情。” 最小的一个用他的大梁敲着铁底鞋的边，笑了。 “雷德伍德兄弟，”他说，“在做梦呢。” 一时间谁也没说话。接着，大哥说，“这么围呀围和简直使我受不了。到最后，我想，他们会围着我们的靴子画个圈，叫我们就住在里面。” 老二推开一堆松树枝，坐了起来。“现在他们干的，比起卡特汉当权以后他们要干的简直算不得什么呢。” “要是他当了权，”最小的弟弟说，一边用他那大梁敲打着地面。 “他会当权的，”大哥望着自己的脚。 老二住手不砍了，望着保护他们的巨大堤防。“那.弟兄们，”他说，“我们的青春就算完了，正像雷德伍德老爸爸很久以前对我们说的，我们必须做个成年人了。” “对，”大哥说，“可这话究竟是什么意思？当乱子来到的时候，它意味着什么？” 他也望了望周围那些粗糙而庞大的所谓工事，却不是真的在望它们.而是越过它们，望着山那边无数的人群，他们心里想到了同一件事——一幅小人们洪水般拥来进行战争的景象，那些无穷无尽的、不间断的、心怀恶意的小人们。 “他们是小，”最小的一个说，“可是他们多得数不清，像海里的沙子一样。” “他们有武器——甚至有我们弟兄在桑德兰做的武器”。 “另外，弟兄们，除开害虫，除了跟一些坏东西的偶然几次遭遇之外，我们哪见过什么叫杀生？” “我知道。”大哥说，”不管怎么样一一我们就是我们。等出乱子的那天来到的时候，我们必须做一些该做的事。” 他拍的一声将刀台上——刀刃有一人长——用他那根新松树干帮助自己站起来。他站住，转身朝着灰糊糊的大房子。他起身时，紫绛色霞光照着了他，照着环绕脖子的锁子甲和金属丝编织的臂甲，在他的兄弟们眼中，好像一下了他突然浑身染满了鲜血。 这个年轻巨人站起来的时候，衬着落日的强光，他看见屹立在高地顶部的土堤顶上，出现了一个小黑人影。黑色的肢体姿势难看地挥动着。在这挥动着的姿势中有点什么东西在年轻巨人心里引起了紧迫感。 他挥舞着大松木干作答，发出震撼整个山谷的巨吼：“喂！”又对兄弟们说了句“出事了”，就迈开二十英尺的大步去迎接和帮助他的父亲。 碰巧，一个青年人，他可不是个巨人，也正在这个时候大谈起科萨尔的这几个儿子。他从塞文欧克斯那边的山上过来，还有一个朋友，不过滔滔不绝的是他。路上，他们听见树篱中传来一阵可怜巴巴的尖叫声，便过去从两只巨蚂蚊口中救出了三只挤在一起的小山雀。正是这桩事引起了他的议论。 “反动！”他说着，来到了可以看见科萨尔的营垒的地方，“谁能不反动呢？看看那块地面，那是上帝的地方，原来美好可爱，如今却挖了个乱七八糟，遭到亵读！瞧那棚子！那个大风车！那些大得出奇的带轮子的机器！还有大堤！瞧那三个大怪物蹲在那里，策划着些丑恶的坏勾当或是什么别的！瞧！——瞧瞧那整个一片地方！” 他的朋友瞥了他一眼。“你听过卡特汉演说。”他说。 “我凭自己的眼睛。你看看我们后面那种和平和秩序井然的景象。这混账的神食是魔鬼的最后一种幻形，仍然照过去一样盘踞在我们世界的废墟上。想想，在我们以前，这世界原来是什么样子，我们出娘胎时它还是种什么样子，再看看现在吧！想想这些山坡从前怎样在金黄色的庄稼下面微笑，树篱怎样开满了可爱的小花，把一个人不大的土地跟别人的隔开，浅红色的小农舍怎样装点着大地，还有那边教堂的钟声怎样在每个安息日使整个世界平静下来做安息日的祷告。现在呢，年复一年，愈来愈多的大野草，大害虫，还有那些巨人，在我们四周生长起来。骑在我们上面，在我们世界的精美神圣的东西之中横冲直撞。哎呀，看这里！” 他指点着，他朋友的眼睛顺着他苍白的手指看去。 “他们的一个脚印。看呀！一脚踩了三英尺深，还不止呢，简直成了马和骑手的陷坑，成了粗心大意的人的陷阱。一棵石楠花踩死了，一棵草连根踩出来，一棵起绒草踩到一边去了，一个衣夫的排水管踩断了，路基边也踩塌了，破坏呀！他们在全世界就是这么干的，对全世界的人们造出来的所有的秩序和体面的东西就是这么于的。反动！不反又怎么办呢？” “可是——反动。你希望怎么做呢？” “止住它！”牛津来的这个小伙子喊道，“趁还来得及。” "But--" “不是不可能的，”牛津来的小伙子喊道，声音猛然提高。“我们需要坚定的人手；我们需要周密的计划和坚定的决心。我们一直是话讲不到点子上，手又软；我们总在胡弄，因循延误，神食可一直在成长。不过甚至就是现在他停了一下。” “这是卡特汉的牙慧，”他的朋友说。 “甚至就是现在。甚至就是现在也还有希望——大有希望，只要我们知道要的是什么，打算消灭的又是什么。人民群众和我们在一起，比几年以前更要靠近我们得多；法律在我们这边，宪法和社会秩序、国教的精神、人类的风俗和习惯，都在我们这一边——共同反对神食。我们为什么要因循延误呢？我们为什么要自欺欺人呢？我们恨它，我们不需要它，那为什么我们得容忍它呢？难道你愿意只是焦虑，被动地阻挡一下，无所事事——一直到时机错过吗？” 他一下顿住，转过身来。“看那边的荨麻丛。它们中间原是人家——人都跑了——原是干干净净的人家，纯朴的人们在里面度过他们诚实的一生！” “可这边！”他转身朝着小科萨尔们互相低声议论着他们那些坏事的地方。 “看看他们！我们认识他们的父亲，一个野兽，一个声音高得让人受不了的那类粗暴的野兽，过去三十多年当中，他就在我们这个大慈悲为怀的世界上跑来跑去。一个工程师！在他看来，所有我们珍爱的奉为神圣的东西都一钱不值。一钱下值！我们人类和土地的光辉传统，高贵的风俗习惯，古老可敬的秩序，从一个先例到一个先例的从容大度的缓慢前进，正是它使我们英国人民伟大，使我们充满阳光的岛屿自由——他把这一切都看成废话，不值一提。一个什么关于未来的哗众取宠的噱头就比这一切神圣的东西都有价值。是那种人，他会让电车路线从他母亲的坟墓上面经过，只要他认为这条路线最省钱。而你却想要因循苟且，搞出什么折衷的安排，只要你能照旧生活，而那——那个机械师一一也照他的样子生活。我告诉你，没有希望。就像和老虎协议一样！他们要把东西都弄成大怪物——我们却要他们合乎情理，甜蜜可爱。下是这样，就是那样。” “那你能做什么呢？” “多啦！全能！取缔神食，他们现在还是分散的，这些巨人，还都不成熟，也没有联合起来。用链子锁住，塞上嘴，锁起来。不惜一切，消灭他们。不是你死，就是我活。消灭神食。把制造的人关起来。尽一切努力，止住科萨尔！你好像忘了——一代人——要消灭的只有一代入，然后——然后我们就把土岗子铲平，填平他们的脚印，从教堂尖塔上撤下那些难看的报警器，把所有我们猎象用的大枪毁掉，让我们的脸重又朝向古老的秩序，朝向成熟的古老文明，那是与人的心灵相适合的。” “这可要费老大的劲。” “为着一个伟大的目的。如果我们不做呢？难道你不能从面前一清二楚的景物看出来吗？这种巨人会在各处增长繁殖；他们会在各处制造并散播神食。我们田地里的草会长到极大，树篱中的杂草，灌木丛里的害虫，阴沟里的老鼠，都会长大，而且会越来越多，越来越多。这才是开始。昆虫，还有植物合跟我们作对，海里的鱼会使我们的船倾覆下沉。巨大的植物会遮掩住我们的房屋，使我们的教堂闷得透不过气来，破坏我们城市里的一切秩序。我们自己就会变成不过是新的人种脚跟下面一种软弱的害虫。人类就会在它自己造成的东西中惨遭没顶之灾！而巨什么别的原因也没有！身量！不过身量而已！放大了的。我们已经在要来到的时代的开始之中择路而行。可我们做的，不过只是说一句'真不方便'！嘟嘟嚷嚷，却什么也不做。不行！”他抬起一只手。 “让我们做该做的事吧！我也会做的。我支持反动，不受约束、无所畏俱的反动。除非你将神食连根铲除，别的又有什么可能呢？我们在中途扰疑太久了。你！在中途犹疑是你的习惯，你的生存方式，你的空间和时间。我可不。我巨付神食、以我全部精力，全心全意反对神食”。他冲着同伴咕吹出来的异议问：“你是什么意见”？ “这是件复杂的事一一” “哦！一一社会上的寄生虫！”从牛津来的小伙子说，口气十分刻薄，四肢猛地一甩：“中庸之道是狗屁。不是这就是那，不是活着就是死掉。不是活着就是死掉！还有什么别的可做呢》？”