Anthony Powell - The Military Philosophers

I repeated that I had not seen the film.

‘You should, Nicholas. I don’t often get out in the evenings, much too much to do, but I think that night did me good. Made me a better man.’

I could not imagine what all this was leading up to.

‘You really think I ought to make an effort to go, sir?’

Farebrother did not answer. Instead, he gave another of his quick glances over the shoulder. For a moment I remained at a loss to know why The Song of Bernadette had so much impressed him that he felt a sudden need to speak of the film so dramatically. Then all at once I grasped that the menace of saluting Widmerpool no longer hung over us. Farebrother, with all his self-control in such matters, all the years he had schooled himself to accept the ways of those set in authority over him, had for one reason or another been unable to face that bitterness in my presence. Inner disciplines, respect for tradition, taste for formality, had none of them been sufficient. The incident showed Farebrother, too, had human weaknesses. Now, he seemed totally to have forgotten about Bernadette. We walked along in silence. Perhaps he was pondering the saintly life. We reached the gates of the Horse Guards. Farebrother paused. His gay blue eyes became a little sad. ‘Do your best to make your Colonel forgive me, Nicholas. You can tell him — without serious breach of security — that Szymanski’s already done a first-rate job in one quarter and likely to do as good a one in another. Do you ever see Prince Theodoric in these days? In my present job I no longer have grand contacts like that.’

I told him I had not seen Theodoric since The Bartered Bride . We went our separate ways.

That night in bed, reading Remembrance of Things Past , I thought again of Theodoric, on account of a passage describing the Princesse de Guermantes’ party:

‘The Ottoman Ambassadress, now bent on demonstrating to me not only her familiarity with the Royalties present, some of whom I knew our hostess had invited out of sheer kindness of heart and would never have been at home to them if the Prince of Wales or the Queen of Spain were in her drawing-room the afternoon they called, but also her mastery of current appointments under consideration at the Quai d’Orsay or Rue St. Dominique, disregarding my wish to cut short our conversation — additionally so because I saw Professor E— once more bearing down on us and feared the Ambassadress, whose complexion conveyed unmistakable signs of a recent bout of varicella, might be one of his patients — drew my attention to a young man wearing a cypripeden (the flower Bloch liked to call “sandal of foam-borne Aphrodite”) in the buttonhole of his dress coat, whose swarthy appearance required only an astrakhan cap and silver-hilted yataghan to complete evident affinities with the Balkan peninsula. This Apollo of the hospodars was talking vigorously to the Grand Duke Vladimir, who had moved away from the propinquity of the fountain and whose features now showed traces of uneasiness because he thought this distant relative, Prince Odoacer, for that was who I knew the young man of the orchid to be, sought his backing in connexion with a certain secret alliance predicted in Eastern Europe, material to the interests of Prince Odoacer’s country no less than the Muscovite Empire; support which the Grand Duke might be unwilling to afford, either on account of his kinsmen having compromised himself financially, through a childish ignorance of the Bourse, in connexion with a speculation involving Panama Canal shares (making things no better by offering to dispose “on the quiet” of a hunting scene by Wouwerman destined as a birthday present for his mistress), from which he had to be extracted by the good offices of that same Baron Manasch with whom Swann had once fought a duel; or, even more unjustly, because the Grand Duke had heard a rumour of the unfortunate reputation the young Prince had incurred for himself by the innocent employment as valet of a notorious youth whom I had more than once seen visiting Jupien’s shop, and, as I learnt much later, was known among his fellow inverts as La Gioconda. “I’m told Gogo — Prince Odoacer — has Dreyfusard leanings!” said the Ambassadress, assuming my ignorance of the Prince’s nickname as well as his openly expressed political sympathies, the momentary cruelty of her smile hinting at Janissary blood flowing in her veins. “Albeit a matter that does not concern a foreigner like myself,” she went on, “yet, if true that the name of Colonel de Froberville, whom I see standing over there, has been put forward as military attaché designate to the French Legation of Prince Odoacer’s country, the fact of such inclinations in one of its Royal House should be made known as soon as possible to any French officer likely to fill the post.” ’

This description of Prince Odoacer was of special interest because he was a relation — possibly great-uncle — of Theodoric’s. I thought about the party for a time, whether there had really been a Turkish Ambassadress, whom Proust found a great bore; then, like the Narrator himself in his childhood days, fell asleep early. This state, left undisturbed by the Warning, was brought to an end by rising hubbub outside. A very noisy attack had started up. Some residents especially those inhabiting the upper storeys, preferred to descend to the ground floor or basement on these occasions. Rather from lethargy than an indifference to danger, I used in general to remain in my flat during raids, feeling that one’s nerve, certainly less steady than at an earlier stage of the war, was unlikely to be improved by exchanging conversational banalities with neighbours equally on edge.

From first beginnings, this particular raid made an unusually obnoxious din and continued to do so. While bombs and flak exploded at the present rate there was little hope of dropping off to sleep again. I lay in the dark, trying to will them to go home, one way, not often an effective one, of passing the time during raids. My interior counter-attack was not successful. An hour went by; then another; and another. So far from decreasing, the noise grew greater in volume. There was a suggestion of more or less regular bursts of detonation launched from the skies, orchestrated against the familiar rise and fall of gunfire. It must have been about two or three in the morning, when, rather illogically, I decided to go downstairs. A move in that direction at least offered something to do. Besides, I could feel myself growing increasingly jumpy. The ground floor at this hour was at worst likely to provide, if nothing else, a certain anthropological interest. The occasion was one for the merest essentials of uniform, pockets filled with stuff from which one did not want to be separated, should damage occur in the room while away. I took a helmet as a matter of principle.

On one of the walls of the lift, incised with a sharp instrument (similar to that used years before to outline the caricature of Widmerpool in the cabinet at La Grenadière), someone quite recently — perhaps that very night — had etched at eye-level, in lower case letters suggesting an E. E. Cummings poem, a brief cogent observation about the manageress, one likely to prove ineradicable as long as the life itself remained in existence, for no paint could have obscured it:

old bitch wartstone

Quite a few people were below, strolling about talking, or sitting on the benches of the hall. No doubt others were in the basement, a region into which I had never penetrated, where there was said to be some sort of ‘shelter’. This crowd was in a perpetual state of change: some, like myself, deciding they needed a spell out of bed; others, too tired or bored to stay longer chatting in the hall, retiring to the basement or simply returning to their own flats. Clanwaert, smoking a cigarette, his hands in the pockets of a rather smart green silk dressing-gown, was present. Living on the ground floor anyway, he had not bothered to dress.