The scene was rendered even more gruesome by a subtle
suggestion of the features of leading men and women of the day in
the portrayal of the Lost Souls; prominent individuals of both
political parties, Society hostesses, well-known dramatic authors
and novelists, and distinguished aeroplanists were dimly
recognizable in that doomed throng; noted lights of the musical-
comedy stage flickered wanly in the shades of the Inferno, smiling
still from force of habit, but with the fearsome smiling rage of
baffled effort. The poster bore no fulsome allusions to the
merits of the new breakfast food, but a single grim statement ran
in bold letters along its base: "They cannot buy it now."
Spayley had grasped, the fact that people will do things from a
sense of duty which they would never attempt as a pleasure. There
are thousands of respectable middle-class men who, if you found
them unexpectedly in a Turkish bath, would explain in all
sincerity that a doctor had ordered them to take Turkish baths; if
you told them in return that you went there because you liked it,
they would stare in pained wonder at the frivolity of your motive.
In the same way, whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from
Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under
orders " from somewhere or another, no one seems to think that
there are people who might LIKE to kill their neighbours now and
then.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135