...
To Peter upon his omnibus, suddenly that sound that he had heard
before--that sound of London stirring--came back to him, and now more
clearly than he had ever known it. Tap-tap-tap-tap...
Clamp-clamp-tap-tap-tap-tap--whir! whir!... Clamp-clamp....
It seemed to him that all the cabs and the buses and the little black
figures were being hurried by some power straight, fast, along Piccadilly
to be pitched, at the end of it, pell-mell, helter-skelter into some dark
abysmal pit, there to perish miserably.
Yes, the beast was stirring! Ever so little the pavements, the houses were
heaving. Perhaps if one could see already the soil was cracking beneath
one's feet. "Look out! London will have you in a minute."
Tap-tap-tap-tap--clamp-clamp--tap-tap-tap-tap--whir-whir--clamp-clamp....
Anyhow it was a heavy, clammy day. The houses were ghosts and the people
were ghosts, and grey shadows, soon perhaps to be a yellow fog, floated
about the windows and the doors and muffled all human sounds.
He passed the great pile of scaffolding, saw iron girders shining, saw huge
cranes swinging in mid-air, saw tiny, tiny black atoms perched above the
noise and swallowed by the smoke... tap-tap-clamp-clamp....
Yes, the beast was moving... and, out and in, lost and then found again,
crept that twisting chain of beggars to whose pallid army Peter himself had
once so nearly belonged.
Pages:
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530