The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [26]
‘Sweet are the ways of death to weary feet,
Calm are the shades of men.
The phantom fears no tyrant in his seat,
The slave is master then.’
He asked where the lines came from. Of course no one knew.
‘Lord de Tabley’s chorus from Medea.’’
‘Never heard of him, sir.’
‘A melancholy fellow, but not without merit.’
Stringham, who had previously appeared all but asleep, had asked if he might see the book. Le Bas handed it over. He always rather liked Stringham, although never much at ease with him. Stringham turned the pages for a moment or two, then returned to the poem. Le Bas had read aloud. Stringham himself spoke the second verse:
‘Love is abolished; well that that is so;
We know him best as Pain.
The gods are all cast out, and let them go!
Who ever found them gain?’
Le Bas was prepared, in moderation, to have Death commended, but he never liked references to Love; probably, for that matter, was unwilling to have the gods so peremptorily dismissed. He had, I suppose, been betrayed into quoting the earlier lines on account of some appositeness they bore to whatever he had been talking about. He must have seen that to allow Stringham to handle the volume itself had been a false step on his own part.
‘Love, of course, had a rather different meaning – indeed, two quite separate meanings in Ancient Greece – from what the modern world understands by the term,’ he said. ‘While railing against the gods was by no means unknown in their mythological stories.’
‘Not bad for a peer of the realm, do you think, sir?’ said Stringham.
That was rather cheek, but Le Bas had let it pass, probably finding a laugh the easiest channel for moving on to less tricky matters.
As I went down the steps, I saw a uniformed Pole had strolled out of the Ufford – as I now thought of the place – and was chatting with Pamela Flitton. He seemed to be making a better job of it than myself, because, although continuing to look sullen, she was listening with comparative acceptance to what seemed the commonplace of conversation. At first I thought the Pole was an officer, then saw he was an ‘other rank’, who wore his battledress, as most of them did, with a tough air and some swagger. He was dark, almost Oriental in feature, showing a lot of gold teeth when he smiled and saluted, before withdrawing up the steps. We set off on the return journey. In the far distance sounded the gentle lowing of an Air Raid Warning. They were to be heard intermittently in the daytime. As the car passed once more through the park, the All Clear sounded, equally faint and far.
‘Sounds as if they let off the first one by mistake.’
She did not answer. Perhaps she only liked foreigners. In any case, the thought of Stringham put things on an unhappy, uncomfortable basis. I was not sure, in truth, whether she wanted to avoid discussing the subject because she herself felt so deeply, or because she was really scarcely at all interested in anything but her own personality. We reached the staff entrance. I made some further remark about a message to her mother. She nodded, disappearing once more behind the screen. Pennistone had returned from the meeting.
‘How did it go?’
‘Finn brought off one of his inimitable French phrases – Kielkiewicz is, as you know, more at ease in French. During a moment’s silence, Finn suddenly murmured very audibly: “Le Commandant-Chef aime bien les garçons.”‘
‘What provoked this startling revelation?’
‘The Polish cadets – a message came down from the top approving of them as potential training material. Thank God, Bobrowski wasn’t there. He’d have had a stroke. Even Kielkiewicz went rather red in the face and pretended to blow his nose.’
‘You didn’t ask Finn to amplify?’
‘One was reminded of the French judge comforting the little boy cross-examined in court. “Ne t’inquiètes-pas, mon enfant, les juges aiment les petits garçons” – then remembering himself and adding: “Pourtant les juges aiment les petites filles.”‘
A day or two later Pamela Flitton drove me again when I was going to Bobrowski’s office. This was in the Harley Street neighbourhood (ten years later I used to sit in a dentist