Anthony Powell - A Question of Upbringing

Everyone, except Commandant Leroy, went off to their rooms early that night; probably because the atmosphere of disquiet spread by Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist, although perhaps a shade less crushing than on the previous day, was still discouraging to general conversation. After the rest of the household had gone upstairs, Widmerpool, pursing his lips and blowing out his cheeks, kept on looking in the commandant’s direction, evidently longing to get rid of him; but the old man sat on, turning over the tattered pages of a long out-of-date copy of L’Illustration , and speaking, disjointedly, of the circumstances in which he had been gassed. I liked Commandant Leroy. The fact that he was bullied by his wife had not prevented him from enjoying a life of his own; and, within the scope of his world of patent medicines and pottering about the garden, he had evolved a philosophy of detachment that made his presence restful rather than the reverse. Widmerpool despised him, however, chiefly, so far as I could gather, on the grounds that the commandant had failed to reach a higher rank in the army. Madame Leroy, on the other hand, was respected by Widmerpool. “She has many of the good qualities of my own mother,” he used to say; and I think he was even a trifle afraid of her.

Commandant Leroy sat describing in scrupulous detail how his unit had been ordered to move into the support line along a network of roads that were being shelled, according to his account, owing to some error committed by the directing staff. He had gone forward to inspect the ground himself, and so on, and so forth. The story came to an end at last, when he found himself in the hands of the army doctors, of whom he spoke with great detestation. Widmerpool stood up. There was another long delay while Bum was let out of the room into the garden: and, after Bum’s return, Commandant Leroy shook hands with both of us, and shuffled off to bed. Widmerpool shut the door after him, and sat down in the commandant’s chair.

“I have settled the matter between Örn and Lundquist,” he said.

“What on earth do you mean?”

Widmerpool made that gobbling sound, not unlike an engine getting up steam, which meant that he was excited, or put out, about something: in this case unusually satisfied. He said: “I have had conversations with each of them — separately — and I think I can confidently predict that I am not far from persuading them to make things up.”

“What?”

“In fact I have reason to suppose that within, say, twenty-four hours I shall have achieved that object.”

“Did you tell them not to be such bloody fools?”

This was quite the wrong comment to have made. Widmerpool, who had previously shown signs of being in a far more complacent mood than was usual in his conversations with me, immediately altered his expression, and, indeed, his whole manner. He said: “Jenkins, do you mind home truths?”

“I don’t think so.”

“First,” said Widmerpool, “you are a great deal too fond of criticising other people: secondly, when a man’s self-esteem has been injured he is to be commiserated with — not blamed. You will find it a help in life to remember those two points.”

“But they have both of them been behaving in the most pompous way imaginable, making life impossible for everyone else. I quite see that Lundquist should not have sent sneaks over the net like that, but Örn ought to be used to them by now. Anyway, if Örn did rap out something a bit stiff, he could easily have said he was sorry. What do you think the word meant?”

“I have no idea what the word meant,” said Widmerpool, “nor am I in the least interested to learn. I agree with you that Lundquist’s play from a certain aspect — I repeat from a certain aspect — might be said to leave something to be desired; that is to say from the purest, and, to my mind, somewhat high-flown, sportsmanship. On the other hand there was no question of cheating .”

“It is a pretty feeble way of winning a service.”

“Games,” said Widmerpool, “are played to be won, whatever people may say and write to the contrary. Lundquist has never found that service to fail. Can he, therefore, be blamed for using it?”

He folded his arms and stared fixedly past me, as if he were looking out into the night in search of further dialectical ammunition, if I were to remain unconvinced by his argument.

“But you wouldn’t use that service yourself?”

“Everyone has his own standards of conduct,” said Widimerpool. “I trust mine are no lower than other people’s.”

“Anyhow,” I said, as I was getting tired of the subject, “what did you do to bring them together?”

“First of all I went to Lundquist,” said Widmerpool, relaxing a little the stringency of his manner; “I explained to him that we all understood that Örn should not have spoken as he did.”

“But we don’t know what Örn said.”

Widmerpool made a nervous movement with his hands to show his irritation; He seemed half-inclined to break off his narrative, but changed his mind, and went on: “I told him that we all knew Örn was a bit of a rough diamond, as Lundquist himself understood, as much — or even more — than the rest of us. It was therefore no good expecting anything very courtly from Örn in the way of behaviour,”

“How did Lundquist take that?”

“He fully agreed. But he emphasised that such defects, attributed by him to inherent weaknesses in the Norwegian system of education, did not alter the fact that his, Lundquist’s, honour had been insulted.”

Widmerpool stopped speaking at this point, and looked at me rather threateningly, as if he was prepared for such a statement on Lundquist’s part to arouse comment. As I remained silent, he continued: “That argument was hard to answer. I asked him, accordingly, if I had his permission to speak to Örn on the same subject.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He bowed.”

“It all sounds very formal.”

“It was very formal,” said Widmerpool. “Why should it have been otherwise?”

Not knowing the answer, I did not take up this challenge; thinking that perhaps he was right.

“I went straight to Örn,” said Widmerpool, “and told him that we all understood his most justifiable annoyance at Lundquist’s service; but that he, Örn, must realise, as the rest of us did, that Lundquist is a proud man. No one could be in a better position to appreciate that fact than Örn himself, I said. I pointed out that it could not fail to be painful to Lundquist’s amour-propre to lose so frequently — even though he were losing to a better tennis-player.”

“Did all this go on in French?”

Widmerpool took no notice of this question; which, both Scandinavians knowing some English, seemed to me of interest. “Örn was more obstinate than Lundquist,” said Widmerpool. “Örn kept on repeating that, if Lundquist wished to play pat-ball with the girls — or little boys, he added — there was plenty of opportunity for him to do so. He, Örn, liked to play with men — hommes — he shouted the word rather loud. He said that, in his own eyes, hommes might be stretched to include Paul-Marie and Jean- Népomucène, but did not include Lundquist.”

Widmerpool paused.

“And he stuck to that?” I asked.

Widmerpool shook his head slowly from side to side, allowing his lips to form a faint smile. He said: “Örn took a lot of persuading.”

“Then he agreed?”

“He agreed that I should come again to-morrow to renew the discussion.”

“You are certainly taking a lot of trouble about them.”

“These things are worth trouble,” said Widmerpool. “You may learn that in time, Jenkins.”