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Friday, December 31st, 2010
| Time |
Event |
| 3:07a |
@@@@@You blasphemed, and a lightning bolt struck
@@@@@You blasphemed, and a lightning bolt struck youThat was a little steep tooIf punishment is at all proportionate to the offense, then power becomes wateredThe only way you generate the proper attitude of awe and obedience is through immense and disproportionate powerWith this in mind, how do you think you would react?"
Hearn was kneading his thighs againIt's an unfair propositionYou're settling a difference between us by
"You remember when I gave that lecture about the man with the gun?"
"Yes
"It's not an accident that I have this powerNor is it that you're in a situation like thisIf you'd been more aware, you wouldn't have thrown down that cigaretteIndeed, you wouldn't have if I were a blustering profane General of the conventional varietyYou don't quite believe I'm serious, that's all
Cummings tossed his cigarette at Hearn's feet"All right, Robert, suppose you pick it up," he said quietly
There was a long pauseUnder his breastbone, Cummings could feel his heart grinding painfully"I hope, Robert, that you pick it up Once more he stared into Hearn's eye
And slowly Hearn was realizing that he meant itIt was apparent in his expressionA series of emotions, subtle and conflicting, flowed behind the surface of his face"If you want to play games," he saidFor the first time Cummings could remember, his voice was unsteadyAfter a moment or two, Hearn bent down, picked up the cigarette, and dropped it in an ash | | 3:07a |
@@@@@There was going to be a way, he would find
@@@@@There was going to be a way, he would find itThere had been a time when Hearn had resisted him too
And his elation, suppressed until now, stimulated him, eased to some extent the sores and frustrations of the past few weeks
Hearn returned to his own tent, and missed lunchFor almost an hour he lay face down on his cot, burning with shame and self-disgust and an impossible impotent angerHe was suffering an excruciating humiliation which mocked him in its very intensityHe had known from the moment the General had sent for him that there would be trouble, and he had entered with the confidence that he wouldn't yield
And yet he had been afraid of Cummings, indeed, afraid of him from the moment he had come into the tentEverything in him had demanded that he refuse to pick up the cigarette and he had done it with a sick numbed suspension of his will
"The only thing to do is to get by on style He had said that once, lived by it in the absence of anything else, and it had been a working guide, almost satisfactory until nowThe only thing that had been important was to let no one in any ultimate issue ever violate your integrity, and this had been an ultimate issueHearn felt as if an immense cyst of suppuration and purulence had burst inside him, and was infecting his blood stream now, washing through all the conduits of his body in a sudden violent flux of changeHe would have to react or die, effectively, and for one of the few times in his life he was quite uncertain of his own abilityIt was impossible; he would have to do something, and he had no idea what to doThe moment was intolerable, the midday heat fierce and airless inside the tent, but he lay motionless, his large chin jammed into the canvas of his cot, his eyes closed, as if he were contemplating all the processes, all the things he had learned and unlearned in his life, and which were free now, sloshing about inside him with the vehemence and the agony of anything that has been suppressed for too long
"I never thought I would crawfish to him
That was the shock, that was the thing so awful to realize
The Time Machine:
ROBERT HEARN
THE ADDLED WOMB
A big man with a shock of black hair and a small sharp voice, a heavy immobile faceHis brown eyes, imperturbable, stared out coldly above the short blunted and slightly hooked arc of his noseHis wide thin mouth was unexpressive, a top ledge to the solid mass of his chinHe liked very few people and most men sensed it uneasily after talking to him for a few minutes
In the center is the city, lashing at one's senses
For a thousand, two thousand miles the roads and the earth have led up to itThe mountains have snubbed down to hills, lapsed into plains, rolled on majestically in leisurely convolutions and regrouping |
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