【有声英语文学名著】不会发生在这里（16）

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

It Can't Happen Here

by Sinclair Lewis

 

Chapter 16

I have no desire to be President. I would much rather do my humble¹ best as a supporter of Bishop² Prang, Ted³ Bilbo, Gene⁴ Talmadge or any other broad-gauged but peppy Liberal. My only longing⁵ is to Serve.

Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip.

Like many bachelors given to vigorous hunting and riding, Buck⁶ Titus was a fastidious housekeeper⁷, and his mid-Victorian farmhouse⁸ fussily⁹ neat. It was also pleasantly bare: the living room a monastic hall of heavy oak chairs, tables free of dainty covers, numerous and rather solemn books of history and exploration, with the conventional "sets," and a tremendous fireplace of rough stone. And the ash trays were solid pottery¹⁰ and pewter, able to cope with a whole evening of cigarette-smoking. The whisky stood honestly on the oak buffet¹¹, with siphons, and with cracked ice always ready in a thermos¹² jug¹³.

It would, however, have been too much to expect Buck Titus not to have red-and-black imitation English hunting-prints.

This hermitage, always grateful to Doremus, was sanctuary¹⁴ now, and only with Buck could he adequately damn Windrip & Co. and people like Francis Tasbrough, who in February was still saying, "Yes, things do look kind of hectic¹⁵ down there in Washington, but that's just because there's so many of these bullheaded politicians that still think they can buck Windrip. Besides, anyway, things like that couldn't ever happen here in New England."

And, indeed, as Doremus went on his lawful¹⁶ occasions past the red-brick Georgian houses, the slender spires¹⁷ of old white churches facing the Green, as he heard the lazy irony¹⁸ of familiar greetings from his acquaintances, men as enduring as their Vermont hills, it seemed to him that the madness in the capital was as alien and distant and unimportant as an earthquake in Tibet.

Constantly, in the Informer, he criticized the government but not too acidly.

The hysteria can't last; be patient, and wait and see, he counseled his readers.

It was not that he was afraid of the authorities. He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure. It can't happen here, said even Doremus--even now.

The one thing that most perplexed¹⁹ him was that there could be a dictator seemingly so different from the fervent²⁰ Hitlers and gesticulating Fascists²¹ and the Cæsars with laurels²² round bald domes²³; a dictator with something of the earthy American sense of humor of a Mark Twain, a George Ade, a Will Rogers, an Artemus Ward²⁴. Windrip could be ever so funny about solemn jaw-drooping opponents, and about the best method of training what he called "a Siamese flea²⁵ hound." Did that, puzzled Doremus, make him less or more dangerous?

Then he remembered the most cruel-mad of all pirates, Sir Henry Morgan, who had thought it ever so funny to sew a victim up in wet rawhide²⁶ and watch it shrink in the sun.

From the perseverance²⁷ with which they bickered²⁸, you could tell that Buck Titus and Lorinda were much fonder of each other than they would admit. Being a person who read little and therefore took what he did read seriously, Buck was distressed²⁹ by the normally studious Lorinda's vacation liking³⁰ for novels about distressed princesses, and when she airily insisted that they were better guides to conduct than Anthony Trollope or Thomas Hardy³¹, Buck roared at her and, in the feebleness of baited strength, nervously³² filled pipes and knocked them out against the stone mantel. But he approved of the relationship between Doremus and Lorinda, which only he (and Shad Ledue!) had guessed, and over Doremus, ten years his senior, this shaggy-headed woodsman fussed like a thwarted³³ spinster.

To both Doremus and Lorinda, Buck's overgrown shack³⁴ became their refuge. And they needed it, late in February, five weeks or thereabouts after Windrip's election.

Despite strikes and riots all over the country, bloodily³⁵ put down by the Minute Men, Windrip's power in Washington was maintained. The most liberal four members of the Supreme³⁶ Court resigned and were replaced by surprisingly unknown lawyers who called President Windrip by his first name. A number of Congressmen were still being "protected" in the District of Columbia jail; others had seen the blinding light forever shed by the goddess Reason and happily returned to the Capitol. The Minute Men were increasingly loyal--they were still unpaid³⁷ volunteers, but provided with "expense accounts" considerably³⁸ larger than the pay of the regular troops. Never in American history had the adherents³⁹ of a President been so well satisfied; they were not only appointed to whatever political jobs there were but to ever so many that really were not; and with such annoyances⁴⁰ as Congressional Investigations⁴¹ hushed, the official awarders of contracts were on the merriest of terms with all contractors⁴². . . . One veteran lobbyist for steel corporations complained that there was no more sport in his hunting--you were not only allowed but expected to shoot all government purchasing-agents sitting.

None of the changes was so publicized as the Presidential mandate⁴³ abruptly⁴⁴ ending the separate existence of the different states, and dividing the whole country into eight "provinces"--thus, asserted Windrip, economizing⁴⁵ by reducing the number of governors and all other state officers and, asserted Windrip's enemies, better enabling him to concentrate his private army and hold the country.

The new "Northeastern Province" included all of New York State north of a line through Ossining, and all of New England except a strip of Connecticut shore as far east as New Haven⁴⁶. This was, Doremus admitted, a natural and homogeneous division, and even more natural seemed the urban and industrial "Metropolitan⁴⁷ Province," which included Greater New York, Westchester County up to Ossining, Long Island, the strip of Connecticut dependent on New York City, New Jersey⁴⁸, northern Delaware, and Pennsylvania as far as Reading and Scranton.

Each province was divided into numbered districts, each district into lettered counties, each county into townships and cities, and only in these last did the old names, with their traditional appeal, remain to endanger President Windrip by memories of honorable local history. And it was gossiped that, next, the government would change even the town names--that they were already thinking fondly of calling New York "Berzelian" and San Francisco "San Sarason." Probably that gossip was false.

The Northeastern Province's six districts were: 1, Upper New York State west of and including Syracuse; 2, New York east of it; 3, Vermont and New Hampshire; 4, Maine; 5, Massachusetts; 6, Rhode Island and the unraped portion of Connecticut.

District 3, Doremus Jessup's district, was divided into the four "counties" of southern and northern Vermont, and southern and northern New Hampshire, with Hanover for capital--the District Commissioner⁴⁹ merely chased the Dartmouth students out and took over the college buildings for his offices, to the considerable approval of Amherst, Williams, and Yale.

So Doremus was living, now, in Northeastern Province, District 3, County B, township of Beulah, and over him for his admiration⁵⁰ and rejoicing were a provincial⁵¹ commissioner, a district commissioner, a county commissioner, an assistant county commissioner in charge of Beulah Township, and all their appertaining M.M. guards and emergency military judges.

Citizens who had lived in any one state for more than ten years seemed to resent more hotly the loss of that state's identity than they did the castration of the Congress and Supreme Court of the United States--indeed, they resented it almost as much as the fact that, while late January, February, and most of March went by, they still were not receiving their governmental gifts of $5000 (or perhaps it would beautifully be $10,000) apiece; had indeed received nothing more than cheery bulletins from Washington to the effect that the "Capital Levy⁵² Board," or C.L.B. was holding sessions.

Virginians whose grandfathers had fought beside Lee shouted that they'd be damned if they'd give up the hallowed state name and form just one arbitrary section of an administrative⁵³ unit containing eleven Southern states; San Franciscans who had considered Los Angelinos even worse than denizens⁵⁴ of Miami now wailed⁵⁵ with agony when California was sundered⁵⁶ and the northern portion lumped in with Oregon, Nevada, and others as the "Mountain and Pacific Province," while southern California was, without her permission, assigned to the Southwestern Province, along with Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Hawaii. As some hint of Buzz Windrip's vision for the future, it was interesting to read that this Southwestern Province was also to be permitted to claim "all portions of Mexico which the United States may from time to time find it necessary to take over, as a protection against the notorious treachery of Mexico and the Jewish plots there hatched."

"Lee Sarason is even more generous than Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg in protecting the future of other countries," sighed Doremus.

As Provincial Commissioner of the Northeastern Province, comprising Upper New York State and New England, was appointed Colonel Dewey Haik, that soldier-lawyer-politician-aviator who was the chilliest-blooded and most arrogant⁵⁷ of all the satellites of Windrip yet had so captivated miners and fishermen during the campaign. He was a strong-flying eagle who liked his meat bloody⁵⁸. As District Commissioner of District 3--Vermont and New Hampshire--appeared, to Doremus's mingled⁵⁹ derision and fury, none other than John Sullivan Reek⁶⁰, that stuffiest⁶¹ of stuffed-shirts, that most gaseous⁶² gas bag, that most amenable⁶³ machine politician of Northern New England; a Republican ex-governor who had, in the alembic of Windrip's patriotism⁶⁴, rosily⁶⁵ turned Leaguer.

No one had ever troubled to be obsequious⁶⁶ to the Hon. J. S. Reek, even when he had been Governor. The weediest back-country Representative had called him "Johnny," in the gubernatorial mansion⁶⁷ (twelve rooms and a leaky roof); and the youngest reporter had bawled⁶⁸, "Well, what bull you handing out today, Ex?"

It was this Commissioner Reek who summoned all the editors in his district to meet him at his new viceregal lodge⁶⁹ in Dartmouth Library and receive the precious privileged information as to how much President Windrip and his subordinate commissioners⁷⁰ admired the gentlemen of the press.

Before he left for the press conference in Hanover, Doremus received from Sissy a "poem"--at least she called it that--which Buck Titus, Lorinda Pike, Julian Falck, and she had painfully composed, late at night, in Buck's fortified⁷¹ manor⁷² house:

Be meek⁷³ with Reek,

Go fake with Haik.

One rhymes with sneak⁷⁴,

And t' other with snake.

Haik, with his beak⁷⁵,

Is on the make,

But Sullivan Reek--

Oh God!

"Well, anyway, Windrip's put everybody to work. And he's driven all these unsightly billboards⁷⁶ off the highways--much better for the tourist trade," said all the old editors, even those who wondered if the President wasn't perhaps the least bit arbitrary.

As he drove to Hanover, Doremus saw hundreds of huge billboards by the road. But they bore only Windrip propaganda and underneath⁷⁷, "with the compliments of a loyal firm" and--very large--"Montgomery Cigarettes" or "Jonquil Foot Soap." On the short walk from a parking-space to the former Dartmouth campus, three several men muttered to him, "Give us a nickel for cuppa coffee, Boss--a Minnie Mouse has got my job and the Mouses won't take me--they say I'm too old." But that may have been propaganda from Moscow.

On the long porch of the Hanover Inn, officers of the Minute Men were reclining in deck chairs, their spurred boots (in all the M.M. organization there was no cavalry) up on the railing.

Doremus passed a science building in front of which was a pile of broken laboratory glassware, and in one stripped laboratory he could see a small squad⁷⁸ of M.M.'s drilling.

District Commissioner John Sullivan Reek affectionately received the editors in a classroom. . . . Old men, used to being revered⁷⁹ as prophets, sitting anxiously in trifling⁸⁰ chairs, facing a fat man in the uniform of an M.M. commander, who smoked an unmilitary cigar as his pulpy⁸¹ hand waved greeting.

Reek took not more than an hour to relate what would have taken the most intelligent man five or six hours--that is, five minutes of speech and the rest of the five hours to recover from the nausea⁸² caused by having to utter such shameless rot. . . . President Windrip, Secretary of State Sarason, Provincial Commissioner Haik, and himself, John Sullivan Reek, they were all being misrepresented by the Republicans, the Jeffersonians, the Communists, England, the Nazis⁸³, and probably the jute and herring industries; and what the government wanted was for any reporter to call on any member of this Administration, and especially on Commissioner Reek, at any time--except perhaps between 3 and 7 A.M.--and "get the real low-down."

Excellency Reek announced, then: "And now, gentlemen, I am giving myself the privilege of introducing you to all four of the County Commissioners, who were just chosen yesterday. Probably each of you will know personally the commissioner from your own county, but I want you to intimately and cooperatively know all four, because, whomever they may be, they join with me in my unquenchable admiration of the press."

The four County Commissioners, as one by one they shambled into the room and were introduced, seemed to Doremus an oddish lot: A moth-eaten lawyer known more for his quotations⁸⁴ from Shakespeare and Robert W. Service than for his shrewdness before a jury. He was luminously⁸⁵ bald except for a prickle of faded rusty⁸⁶ hair, but you felt that, if he had his rights, he would have the floating locks of a tragedian of 1890.

A battling clergyman famed for raiding roadhouses.

A rather shy workman, an authentic⁸⁷ proletarian, who seemed surprised to find himself there. (He was replaced, a month later, by a popular osteopath with an interest in politics and vegetarianism⁸⁸.)

The fourth dignitary to come in and affectionately bow to the editors, a bulky man, formidable-looking in his uniform as a battalion⁸⁹ leader of Minute Men, introduced as the Commissioner for northern Vermont, Doremus Jessup's county, was Mr. Oscar Ledue, formerly⁹⁰ known as "Shad."

Mr. Reek called him "Captain" Ledue. Doremus remembered that Shad's only military service, prior to Windrip's election, had been as an A.E.F. private who had never got beyond a training-camp in America and whose fiercest experience in battle had been licking a corporal when in liquor.

"Mr. Jessup," bubbled the Hon. Mr. Reek, "I imagine you must have met Captain Ledue--comes from your charming city."

"Uh-uh-ur," said Doremus.

"Sure," said Captain Ledue. "I've met old Jessup, all right, all right! He don't know what it's all about. He don't know the first thing about the economics of our social Revolution. He's a Cho-vinis. But he isn't such a bad old coot, and I'll let him ride as long as he behaves himself!"

"Splendid!" said the Hon. Mr. Reek.

分享到：