Read Books Online, for Free |
Part II: The Explanations of Innocent Smith | Gilbert K. Chesterton | |
Chapter III. The Round Road; or, the Desertion Charge |
Page 6 of 13 |
"He sat with his dreamy eyes on the dark circles of the plains, where the only moving thing was the long and labouring trail of smoke out of the railway engine, violet in tint, volcanic in outline, the one hot and heavy cloud of that cold clear evening of pale green. "`Yes,' he said with a huge sigh, `I am free in Russia. You are right. I could really walk into that town over there and have love all over again, and perhaps marry some beautiful woman and begin again, and nobody could ever find me. Yes, you have certainly convinced me of something.' "His tone was so queer and mystical that I felt impelled to ask him what he meant, and of what exactly I had convinced him. "`You have convinced me,' he said with the same dreamy eye, `why it is really wicked and dangerous for a man to run away from his wife.' "`And why is it dangerous?' I inquired. "`Why, because nobody can find him,' answered this odd person, `and we all want to be found.' "`The most original modern thinkers,' I remarked, `Ibsen, Gorki, Nietzsche, Shaw, would all rather say that what we want most is to be lost: to find ourselves in untrodden paths, and to do unprecedented things: to break with the past and belong to the future.' "He rose to his whole height somewhat sleepily, and looked round on what was, I confess, a somewhat desolate scene--the dark purple plains, the neglected railroad, the few ragged knots of malcontents. `I shall not find the house here,' he said. `It is still eastward-- further and further eastward.' "Then he turned upon me with something like fury, and struck the foot of his pole upon the frozen earth. |
Who's On Your Reading List? Read Classic Books Online for Free at Page by Page Books.TM |
Manalive Gilbert K. Chesterton |
Home | More Books | About Us | Copyright 2004