【英文文学】The Iron Heel 铁蹄.docx

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1、【英文文学】The Iron Heel 铁蹄ForewordIt cannot be said that the Everhard Manuscript is an important historical document. To the historian it bristles with errors not errors of fact, but errors of interpretation. Looking back across the seven centuries that have lapsed since Avis Everhard completed her manu

2、script, events, and the bearings of events, that were confused and veiled to her, are clear to us. She lacked perspective. She was too close to the events she writes about. Nay, she was merged in the events she has described.Nevertheless, as a personal document, the Everhard Manuscript is of inestim

3、able value. But here again enter error of perspective, and vitiation due to the bias of love. Yet we smile, indeed, and forgive Avis Everhard for the heroic lines upon which she modelled her husband. We know to-day that he was not so colossal, and that he loomed among the events of his times less la

4、rgely than the Manuscript would lead us to believe.We know that Ernest Everhard was an exceptionally strong man, but not so exceptional as his wife thought him to be. He was, after all, but one of a large number of heroes who, throughout the world, devoted their lives to the Revolution; though it mu

5、st be conceded that he did unusual work, especially in his elaboration and interpretation of working-class philosophy. “Proletarian science” and “proletarian philosophy” were his phrases for it, and therein he shows the provincialism of his mind a defect, however, that was due to the times and that

6、none in that day could escape.But to return to the Manuscript. Especially valuable is it in communicating to us the FEEL of those terrible times. Nowhere do we find more vividly portrayed the psychology of the persons that lived in that turbulent period embraced between the years 1912 and 1932 their

7、 mistakes and ignorance, their doubts and fears and misapprehensions, their ethical delusions, their violent passions, their inconceivable sordidness and selfishness. These are the things that are so hard for us of this enlightened age to understand. History tells us that these things were, and biol

8、ogy and psychology tell us why they were; but history and biology and psychology do not make these things alive. We accept them as facts, but we are left without sympathetic comprehension of them.This sympathy comes to us, however, as we peruse the Everhard Manuscript. We enter into the minds of the

9、 actors in that long-ago world-drama, and for the time being their mental processes are our mental processes. Not alone do we understand Avis Everhards love for her hero-husband, but we feel, as he felt, in those first days, the vague and terrible loom of the Oligarchy. The Iron Heel (well named) we

10、 feel descending upon and crushing mankind.And in passing we note that that historic phrase, the Iron Heel, originated in Ernest Everhards mind. This, we may say, is the one moot question that this new-found document clears up. Previous to this, the earliest-known use of the phrase occurred in the p

11、amphlet, “Ye Slaves,” written by George Milford and published in December, 1912. This George Milford was an obscure agitator about whom nothing is known, save the one additional bit of information gained from the Manuscript, which mentions that he was shot in the Chicago Commune. Evidently he had he

12、ard Ernest Everhard make use of the phrase in some public speech, most probably when he was running for Congress in the fall of 1912. From the Manuscript we learn that Everhard used the phrase at a private dinner in the spring of 1912. This is, without discussion, the earliest-known occasion on whic

13、h the Oligarchy was so designated.The rise of the Oligarchy will always remain a cause of secret wonder to the historian and the philosopher. Other great historical events have their place in social evolution. They were inevitable. Their coming could have been predicted with the same certitude that

14、astronomers to-day predict the outcome of the movements of stars. Without these other great historical events, social evolution could not have proceeded. Primitive communism, chattel slavery, serf slavery, and wage slavery were necessary stepping-stones in the evolution of society. But it were ridic

15、ulous to assert that the Iron Heel was a necessary stepping-stone. Rather, to-day, is it adjudged a step aside, or a step backward, to the social tyrannies that made the early world a hell, but that were as necessary as the Iron Heel was unnecessary.Black as Feudalism was, yet the coming of it was i

16、nevitable. What else than Feudalism could have followed upon the breakdown of that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman Empire? Not so, however, with the Iron Heel. In the orderly procedure of social evolution there was no place for it. It was not necessary, and it was not inevi

17、table. It must always remain the great curiosity of history a whim, a fantasy, an apparition, a thing unexpected and undreamed; and it should serve as a warning to those rash political theorists of to-day who speak with certitude of social processes.Capitalism was adjudged by the sociologists of the

18、 time to be the culmination of bourgeois rule, the ripened fruit of the bourgeois revolution. And we of to-day can but applaud that judgment. Following upon Capitalism, it was held, even by such intellectual and antagonistic giants as Herbert Spencer, that Socialism would come. Out of the decay of s

19、elf-seeking capitalism, it was held, would arise that flower of the ages, the Brotherhood of Man. Instead of which, appalling alike to us who look back and to those that lived at the time, capitalism, rotten-ripe, sent forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy.Too late did the socialist movement

20、of the early twentieth century divine the coming of the Oligarchy. Even as it was divined, the Oligarchy was there a fact established in blood, a stupendous and awful reality. Nor even then, as the Everhard Manuscript well shows, was any permanence attributed to the Iron Heel. Its overthrow was a ma

21、tter of a few short years, was the judgment of the revolutionists. It is true, they realized that the Peasant Revolt was unplanned, and that the First Revolt was premature; but they little realized that the Second Revolt, planned and mature, was doomed to equal futility and more terrible punishment.

22、It is apparent that Avis Everhard completed the Manuscript during the last days of preparation for the Second Revolt; hence the fact that there is no mention of the disastrous outcome of the Second Revolt. It is quite clear that she intended the Manuscript for immediate publication, as soon as the I

23、ron Heel was overthrown, so that her husband, so recently dead, should receive full credit for all that he had ventured and accomplished. Then came the frightful crushing of the Second Revolt, and it is probable that in the moment of danger, ere she fled or was captured by the Mercenaries, she hid t

24、he Manuscript in the hollow oak at Wake Robin Lodge.Of Avis Everhard there is no further record. Undoubtedly she was executed by the Mercenaries; and, as is well known, no record of such executions was kept by the Iron Heel. But little did she realize, even then, as she hid the Manuscript and prepar

25、ed to flee, how terrible had been the breakdown of the Second Revolt. Little did she realize that the tortuous and distorted evolution of the next three centuries would compel a Third Revolt and a Fourth Revolt, and many Revolts, all drowned in seas of blood, ere the world-movement of labor should c

26、ome into its own. And little did she dream that for seven long centuries the tribute of her love to Ernest Everhard would repose undisturbed in the heart of the ancient oak of Wake Robin Lodge.Anthony MeredithArdis,November 27, 419 B.O.M.Chapter 1 My EagleThe soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and

27、 Wild-Water ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees. It is so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless. It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal. All the world is quie

28、t, but it is the quiet before the storm. I strain my ears, and all my senses, for some betrayal of that impending storm. Oh, that it may not be premature! That it may not be premature!11 The Second Revolt was largely the work of Ernest Everhard, though he cooperated, of course, with the European lea

29、ders. The capture and secret execution of Everhard was the great event of the spring of 1932 A.D. Yet so thoroughly had he prepared for the revolt, that his fellow-conspirators were able, with little confusion or delay, to carry out his plans. It was after Everhards execution that his wife went to W

30、ake Robin Lodge, a small bungalow in the Sonoma Hills of California.Small wonder that I am restless. I think, and think, and I cannot cease from thinking. I have been in the thick of life so long that I am oppressed by the peace and quiet, and I cannot forbear from dwelling upon that mad maelstrom o

31、f death and destruction so soon to burst forth. In my ears are the cries of the stricken; and I can see, as I have seen in the past,2 all the marring and mangling of the sweet, beautiful flesh, and the souls torn with violence from proud bodies and hurled to God. Thus do we poor humans attain our en

32、ds, striving through carnage and destruction to bring lasting peace and happiness upon the earth.2 Without doubt she here refers to the Chicago Commune.And then I am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come, I think of what has been and is no more my Eagle, beating with tireless wings the void

33、, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the flaming ideal of human freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the great event that is his making, though he is not here to see. He devoted all the years of his manhood to it, and for it he gave his life. It is his handiwork. He made it.33 With all respect

34、to Avis Everhard, it must be pointed out that Everhard was but one of many able leaders who planned the Second Revolt. And we to-day, looking back across the centuries, can safely say that even had he lived, the Second Revolt would not have been less calamitous in its outcome than it was.And so it i

35、s, in this anxious time of waiting, that I shall write of my husband. There is much light that I alone of all persons living can throw upon his character, and so noble a character cannot be blazoned forth too brightly. His was a great soul, and, when my love grows unselfish, my chiefest regret is th

36、at he is not here to witness to-morrows dawn. We cannot fail. He has built too stoutly and too surely for that. Woe to the Iron Heel! Soon shall it be thrust back from off prostrate humanity. When the word goes forth, the labor hosts of all the world shall rise. There has been nothing like it in the

37、 history of the world. The solidarity of labor is assured, and for the first time will there be an international revolution wide as the world is wide.44 The Second Revolt was truly international. It was a colossal plan too colossal to be wrought by the genius of one man alone. Labor, in all the olig

38、archies of the world, was prepared to rise at the signal. Germany, Italy, France, and all Australasia were labor countries socialist states. They were ready to lend aid to the revolution. Gallantly they did; and it was for this reason, when the Second Revolt was crushed, that they, too, were crushed

39、 by the united oligarchies of the world, their socialist governments being replaced by oligarchical governments.You see, I am full of what is impending. I have lived it day and night utterly and for so long that it is ever present in my mind. For that matter, I cannot think of my husband without thi

40、nking of it. He was the soul of it, and how can I possibly separate the two in thought?As I have said, there is much light that I alone can throw upon his character. It is well known that he toiled hard for liberty and suffered sore. How hard he toiled and how greatly he suffered, I well know; for I

41、 have been with him during these twenty anxious years and I know his patience, his untiring effort, his infinite devotion to the Cause for which, only two months gone, he laid down his life.I shall try to write simply and to tell here how Ernest Everhard entered my life how I first met him, how he g

42、rew until I became a part of him, and the tremendous changes he wrought in my life. In this way may you look at him through my eyes and learn him as I learned him in all save the things too secret and sweet for me to tell.It was in February, 1912, that I first met him, when, as a guest of my fathers

43、5 at dinner, he came to our house in Berkeley. I cannot say that my very first impression of him was favorable. He was one of many at dinner, and in the drawing-room where we gathered and waited for all to arrive, he made a rather incongruous appearance. It was “preachers night,” as my father privat

44、ely called it, and Ernest was certainly out of place in the midst of the churchmen.5 John Cunningham, Avis Everhards father, was a professor at the State University at Berkeley, California. His chosen field was physics, and in addition he did much original research and was greatly distinguished as a

45、 scientist. His chief contribution to science was his studies of the electron and his monumental work on the “Identification of Matter and Energy,” wherein he established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate unit of matter and the ultimate unit of force were identical. This idea had bee

46、n earlier advanced, but not demonstrated, by Sir Oliver Lodge and other students in the new field of radio-activity.In the first place, his clothes did not fit him. He wore a ready-made suit of dark cloth that was ill adjusted to his body. In fact, no ready-made suit of clothes ever could fit his bo

47、dy. And on this night, as always, the cloth bulged with his muscles, while the coat between the shoulders, what of the heavy shoulder-development, was a maze of wrinkles. His neck was the neck of a prize-fighter,6 thick and strong. So this was the social philosopher and ex-horseshoer my father had d

48、iscovered, was my thought. And he certainly looked it with those bulging muscles and that bull-throat. Immediately I classified him a sort of prodigy, I thought, a Blind Tom7 of the working class.6 In that day it was the custom of men to compete for purses of money. They fought with their hands. Whe

49、n one was beaten into insensibility or killed, the survivor took the money.7 This obscure reference applies to a blind negro musician who took the world by storm in the latter half of the nineteenth century of the Christian Era.And then, when he shook hands with me! His handshake was firm and strong, but he looked at me boldly with his black eyes too boldly, I thought. You see, I was a creature of environment, and at that time had st