All Roads Lead to Calvary. Jerome Klapka Jerome

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СКАЧАТЬ he said. “This thing’s not going to mean much to me one way or the other. I want you to win. Farm labourers bringing up families on twelve and six a week. Shirt hands working half into the night for three farthings an hour. Stinking dens for men to live in. Degraded women. Half fed children. It’s damnable. Tell them it’s got to stop. That the Eternal Feminine has stepped out of the poster and commands it.”

      A dapper young man opened the door and put his head into the room.

      “Railway smash in Yorkshire,” he announced.

      Carleton sat up. “Much of a one?” he asked.

      The dapper gentleman shrugged his shoulders. “Three killed, eight injured, so far,” he answered.

      Carleton’s interest appeared to collapse.

      “Stop press column?” asked the dapper gentleman.

      “Yes, I suppose so,” replied Carleton. “Unless something better turns up.”

      The dapper young gentleman disappeared. Joan had risen.

      “May I talk it over with a friend?” she asked. “Myself, I’m inclined to accept.”

      “You will, if you’re in earnest,” he answered. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Look in to-morrow afternoon, and see Finch. It will be for the Sunday Post– the Inset. We use surfaced paper for that and can do you justice. Finch will arrange about the photograph.” He held out his hand. “Shall be seeing you again,” he said.

      It was but a stone’s throw to the office of the Evening Gazette. She caught Greyson just as he was leaving and put the thing before him. His sister was with him.

      He did not answer at first. He was walking to and fro; and, catching his foot in the waste paper basket, he kicked it savagely out of his way, so that the contents were scattered over the room.

      “Yes, he’s right,” he said. “It was the Virgin above the altar that popularized Christianity. Her face has always been woman’s fortune. If she’s going to become a fighter, it will have to be her weapon.”

      He had used almost the same words that Carleton had used.

      “I so want them to listen to me,” she said. “After all, it’s only like having a very loud voice.”

      He looked at her and smiled. “Yes,” he said, “it’s a voice men will listen to.”

      Mary Greyson was standing by the fire. She had not spoken hitherto.

      “You won’t give up ‘Clorinda’?” she asked.

      Joan had intended to do so, but something in Mary’s voice caused her, against her will, to change her mind.

      “Of course not,” she answered. “I shall run them both. It will be like writing Jekyll and Hyde.”

      “What will you sign yourself?” he asked.

      “My own name, I think,” she said. “Joan Allway.”

      Miss Greyson suggested her coming home to dinner with them; but Joan found an excuse. She wanted to be alone.

      CHAPTER V

      The twilight was fading as she left the office. She turned northward, choosing a broad, ill-lighted road. It did not matter which way she took. She wanted to think; or, rather, to dream.

      It would all fall out as she had intended. She would commence by becoming a power in journalism. She was reconciled now to the photograph idea – was even keen on it herself. She would be taken full face so that she would be looking straight into the eyes of her readers as she talked to them. It would compel her to be herself; just a hopeful, loving woman: a little better educated than the majority, having had greater opportunity: a little further seeing, maybe, having had more leisure for thought: but otherwise, no whit superior to any other young, eager woman of the people. This absurd journalistic pose of omniscience, of infallibility – this non-existent garment of supreme wisdom that, like the King’s clothes in the fairy story, was donned to hide his nakedness by every strutting nonentity of Fleet Street! She would have no use for it. It should be a friend, a comrade, a fellow-servant of the great Master, taking counsel with them, asking their help. Government by the people for the people! It must be made real. These silent, thoughtful-looking workers, hurrying homewards through the darkening streets; these patient, shrewd-planning housewives casting their shadows on the drawn-down blinds: it was they who should be shaping the world, not the journalists to whom all life was but so much “copy.” This monstrous conspiracy, once of the Sword, of the Church, now of the Press, that put all Government into the hands of a few stuffy old gentlemen, politicians, leader writers, without sympathy or understanding: it was time that it was swept away. She would raise a new standard. It should be, not “Listen to me, oh ye dumb,” but, “Speak to me. Tell me your hidden hopes, your fears, your dreams. Tell me your experience, your thoughts born of knowledge, of suffering.”

      She would get into correspondence with them, go among them, talk to them. The difficulty, at first, would be in getting them to write to her, to open their minds to her. These voiceless masses that never spoke, but were always being spoken for by self-appointed “leaders,” “representatives,” who immediately they had climbed into prominence took their place among the rulers, and then from press and platform shouted to them what they were to think and feel. It was as if the Drill-Sergeant were to claim to be the “leader,” the “representative” of his squad; or the sheep-dog to pose as the “delegate” of the sheep. Dealt with always as if they were mere herds, mere flocks, they had almost lost the power of individual utterance. One would have to teach them, encourage them.

      She remembered a Sunday class she had once conducted; and how for a long time she had tried in vain to get the children to “come in,” to take a hand. That she might get in touch with them, understand their small problems, she had urged them to ask questions. And there had fallen such long silences. Until, at last, one cheeky ragamuffin had piped out:

      “Please, Miss, have you got red hair all over you? Or only on your head?”

      For answer she had rolled up her sleeve, and let them examine her arm. And then, in her turn, had insisted on rolling up his sleeve, revealing the fact that his arms above the wrists had evidently not too recently been washed; and the episode had ended in laughter and a babel of shrill voices. And, at once, they were a party of chums, discussing matters together.

      They were but children, these tired men and women, just released from their day’s toil, hastening homeward to their play, or to their evening tasks. A little humour, a little understanding, a recognition of the wonderful likeness of us all to one another underneath our outward coverings was all that was needed to break down the barrier, establish comradeship. She stood aside a moment to watch them streaming by. Keen, strong faces were among them, high, thoughtful brows, kind eyes; they must learn to think, to speak for themselves.

      She would build again the Forum. The people’s business should no longer be settled for them behind lackey-guarded doors. The good of the farm labourer should be determined not exclusively by the squire and his relations. The man with the hoe, the man with the bent back and the patient ox-like eyes: he, too, should be invited to the Council board. Middle-class domestic problems should be solved not solely by fine gentlemen from Oxford; the wife of the little clerk should be allowed her say. War or peace, it should no longer be regarded as a question concerning only the aged rich. The common people – the cannon fodder, the men who would die, and the women who would weep: they should be given something more than the privilege of either СКАЧАТЬ