He found that he now feared to be inadequate, he
feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality
of his wit; astonished, he turned to the man in yellow with a
propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not
think it would be like this. I must think of the thing I have to say."
While he was still hesitating there came an agitated messenger with news
that the foremost aeroplanes were passing over Madrid.
"What news of the flying stages?" he asked.
"The people of the south-west wards are ready."
"Ready!"
He turned impatiently to the blank circles of the lenses again.
"I suppose it must be a sort of speech. Would to God I knew certainly the
thing that should be said! Aeroplanes at Madrid! They must have started
before the main fleet.
"Oh! what can it matter whether I speak well or ill?" he said, and felt
the light grow brighter.
He had framed some vague sentence of democratic sentiment when suddenly
doubts overwhelmed him. His belief in his heroic quality and calling he
found had altogether lost its assured conviction. The picture of a
little strutting futility in a windy waste of incomprehensible
destinies replaced it. Abruptly it was perfectly clear to him that this
revolt against Ostrog was premature, foredoomed to failure, the impulse
of passionate inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of that
swift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of Fate towards him.
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