Do you remember, said Julia, in the tranquil, lime-scented evening, ‘do you remember the storm
The bronze doors banging.
The roses in cellophane.
The man who gave the “get-together” party and was never seen again.’ ‘Do you remember how the sun came out on our last evening just as it has done today
It had been an afternoon of low cloud and summer squalls, so overcast that at times I had stopped work and roused Julia from the light trance in which she sat - she had sat so often; I never tired of painting her, forever finding in her new wealth and delicacy - until at length we had gone early to our baths and, on coming down, dressed for dinner, in the last half-hour of the day, we found the world transformed; the sun had emerged; the wind had fallen to a soft breeze which gently stirred the blossom in the limes and carried its fragrance, fresh from the late rains, to merge with the sweet breath of box and the drying stone. The shadow of the obelisk spanned the terrace.
I had carried two garden cushions from the shelter of the colonnade and put them on the rim of the fountain. There Julia sat, in a tight little gold tunic and a white gown, one hand in the water idly turning an emerald ring to catch the fire of the sunset; the carved
animals mounted over her dark head in a cumulus of green moss and glowing stone and dense shadow, and the waters round them flashed and bubbled and broke into scattered flames.
So much to remember,’ she said. ‘How many days have there been since then, when we haven’t seen each other; a hundred, do you think?’ ‘Not so many.
Two Christmases’ - those bleak, annual excursions into propriety. Boughton, home of my family, home of my cousin Jasper, with what glum memories of childhood I revisited its pitch-pine corridors and dripping walls! How querulously my father and I, seated side by side in my uncle’s Humber, approached the avenue of Wellingtonias knowing that at the end of the drive we should find my uncle, my aunt, my Aunt Phillippa, my cousin Jasper, and, of recent years, Jasper’s wife and children; and besides them, perhaps already arrived, perhaps every moment expected, my wife and my children. This annual sacrifice united us; here among the holly and mistletoe and the cut spruce, the parlour game’s ritually performed, the brandy-butter and the Carlsbad plums, the village choir in the pitch-pine minstrels’ gallery, gold twine and sprigged wrapping-paper, she and I were accepted, whatever ugly rumours had been afloat in tile past year, as man and wife. ‘We must keep it up, whatever it costs us, for the sake of the children my wife said.
Yes, two Christmases...And the three days, of good taste before I followed you to Capri.
Our first summer.
Do you remember how I hung about Naples, then followed, how we met by arrangement on the hill path and how flat it fell
I went back to the villa and said, “Papa, who do you think has arrived at the hotel?” and he said, “Charles Ryder, I suppose.” I said, “Why did you think of him?” and papa replied, “Cara came back from Paris with the news that you and he were inseparable. He seems to have a penchant for my children. However, bring him here; I think we have the room.
There was the time you had jaundice and wouldn’t let me see you.
And when I had flu and you were afraid to come.
Countless visits to Rex’s constituency.
And Coronation Week, when you ran away from London. Your goodwill mission to your father-in-law. The time you went to Oxford to paint the picture they didn’t like. Oh, yes, quite a hundred days.
A hundred days wasted out of two years and a bit...not a day’s coldness or mistrust or disappointment.
Never that.
We fell silent; only the birds spoke in a multitude of small, clear voices in the lime-trees; only the waters spoke among their carved stones. Julia took the handkerchief from my breast pocket and dried her hand; then lit a cigarette. I feared to break the spell of memories, but for once our thoughts had not kept pace together, for when at length Julia spoke, she said sadly: ‘How many more? Another hundred
A lifetime.
I want to marry you, Charles.
One day; why now
War,’ she said, ‘this year, next year, sometime soon. I want a day or two with you of real peace.
Isn’t this peace
The sun had sunk now to the line of woodland beyond the valley; all the opposing slope was already in twilight, but the lakes below us were aflame; the light grew in strength and splendour as it neared death, drawing long shadows across the pasture, falling full on the rich stone spaces of the house, firing the panes in the windows, glowing on cornices and colonnade and dome, spreading out all the stacked merchandise of colour and scent from earth and stone and leaf, glorifying the head and golden shoulders of the woman beside me.
What do you mean by “peace”, if not this
So much more’; and then in a chill, matter-of-fact tone she continued: ‘Marriage isn’t a thing we can take when the impulse moves us. There must be a divorce - two divorces. We must make plans.
Plans, divorce, war - on an evening like this.
Sometimes said Julia, ‘I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.’ Then Wilcox came down the steps into the sunset to tell us that dinner was ready.
Shutters were up, curtains drawn, candles lit, in the Painted Parlour.
Hullo, it’s laid for three
Lord Brideshead arrived half an hour ago, my lady. He sent a message would you please not wait dinner for him as he may be a little late.’ ‘It seems months since he was here last,’ said Julia. ‘What does he do in London?’ It was often a matter for speculation between us - giving birth to many fantasies, for Bridey was a mystery; a creature from underground; a hard-snouted, burrowing, hibernating animal who shunned the light. He had been completely without action in all his years of adult life; the talk of his going into the army and into parliament and into a monastery, had all come to nothing. All that he was known with certainty to have done and this because in a season of scant news it had formed the subject of a newspaper article entitled ‘Peer’s Unusual Hobby’ - was to form a collection of match-boxes; he kept them mounted on boards, card-indexed, yearly occupying a larger and larger space in his small house in Westminster. At first he was bashful about the notoriety which the newspaper caused, but later greatly pleased, for he found it the means of his getting into touch with other collectors in all parts of the world with whom he now corresponded and swapped duplicates. Other than this he was not known to have any interests. He remained joint Master of the Marchmain and hunted with them dutifully on their two days a week when he was at home; he never hunted with the neighbouring pack, who had the better country. He had no real zest for sport, and had not been out a dozen times that season; he had few friends; he visited his aunts; he went to public dinners held in the Catholic interest. At Brideshead he performed all unavoidable local duties, bringing with him to platform and fête and committee room his own thin mist of clumsiness and - aloofness.
There was a girl found strangled with a piece of barbed wire at Wandsworth last week,’ I said, reviving an old fantasy.
That must be Bridey. He is naughty.
When we had been a quarter of an hour at the table, he joined us, coming ponderously into the room in the bottle-green velvet smoking suit which he kept at Brideshead and always wore when he was there. At thirty-eight he had grown heavy and bald, and might have been taken for forty-five.
Well,’ he said, ‘well, only you two; I hoped to find Rex here.
I often wondered what he made of me and of my continual presence; he seemed to accept me, without curiosity, as one of the household. Twice in the past two years he had surprised me by what seemed to be acts of friendship; that Christmas he had sent me a photograph of himself in the robes of a Knight of Malta, and shortly afterwards asked me to go with him to a dining club. Both acts had an explanation: he had had more copies of his portrait printed than he knew what to do with; he was proud of his club. It was a surprising association of men quite eminent in their professions who met once a month for an evening of ceremonious buffoonery; each had his sobriquet Bridey was called ‘Brother Grandee’ - and a specially designed jewel worn like an order of chivalry, symbolizing it; they had club buttons for their waistcoats and an elaborate ritual for the introduction of guests; after dinner a paper was read and facetious speeches were made. There was plainly some competition to bring guests of distinction and since Bridey had few friends, and since I was tolerably well known, I was invited. Even on that convivial evening I could feel my host emanating little magnetic waves of social uneasiness, creating, rather, a pool of general embarrassment about himself in which, he floated with log-like calm.
He sat down opposite me and bowed his sparse, pink head over his plate.
Well, Bridey. What’s the news
As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I have some news. But it can wait.
Tell us now.
He made a grimace which I took to mean ‘not in front of the servants’, and said, ‘How is the painting, Charles
Which painting
Whatever you have on the stocks.
I began a sketch of Julia, but the light was tricky all today.’ ‘Julia? I thought you’d done her before. I suppose it’s a change from architecture, and much more difficult.
His conversation abounded in long pauses during which his mind seemed to remain motionless; he always brought one back with a start to the exact point where he had stopped. Now after more than a minute he said: ‘The world is full of different subjects.’ ‘Very true, Bridey.
If I were a painter,’ he said, ‘I should choose an entirely different subject every time; subjects with plenty of action in them like...’ Another pause. What, I wondered was coming? The Flying Scotsman? The Charge of the Light Brigade? Henley Regatta? Then surprisingly he said: ‘...like Macbeth.’ There was something supremely preposterous in the idea of Bridey as a painter of action pictures; he was usually preposterous yet somehow achieved a certain dignity by his remoteness and agelessness; he was still half-child, already half-veteran; there seemed no spark of contemporary life in him; he had a kind of massive rectitude and impermeability, an indifference to the world, which compelled respect. Though we often laughed at him, he was never wholly ridiculous; at times he was even formidable. We talked of the news from central Europe until, suddenly cutting across this barren topic, Bridey asked: ‘Where are mummy’s jewels
This was hers,’ said Julia, ‘and this. Cordelia and I had all her own things. The family jewels went to the bank.
It’s so long since I’ve seen them - I don’t know that I ever saw them all. What is there? Aren’t there some rather famous rubies, someone was telling me?’ ‘Yes, a necklace. Mummy used often to wear it, don’t you remember? And there are the pearls - she always had those out. But most of it stayed in the bank year after year. There are some hideous diamond fenders, I remember, and a Victorian diamond collar no one could wear now. There’s a mass of good stones. Why?’ ‘I’d like to have a took at them some day.
I say, papa isn’t going to pop them, is he? He hasn’t got into debt again
No, no, nothing like that.
Bridey was a slow and copious eater. Julia and I watched him between the candles. Presently he said: ‘If I was Rex’ - his mind seemed full of such suppositions: ‘If I was Archbishop of Westminster’, ‘If I was head of the Great Western Railway’, ‘If I was an actress’, as though it were a mere trick of fate that he was none of these things, and he might awake any morning to find the matter adjusted - ‘if I was Rex I should want to live in my constituency.
Rex says it saves four days’ work a week not to.
I’m so he’s not here. I have a little announcement to make.
Bridey, don’t be so mysterious. Out with it.
He made the grimace which seemed to mean ‘not before the servants.’ Later when port was on the table and we three were alone Julia said: ‘I’m not going till I hear the announcement.
Well,’ said Bridey, sitting back in his chair and gazing fixedly at his glass. ‘You have only to wait until Monday to see it in black and white in the newspapers. I am engaged to be married. I hope you are pleased.
Bridey. How...how very exciting! Who to
Oh, no one you know.
Is she pretty
I don’t think you would exactly call her pretty; “comely” is the word I think of in her connection. She is a big woman.
Fat
No, big. She is called Mrs Muspratt; her Christian name is Beryl. I have known her for a long time, but until last year she had a husband; now she is a widow. Why do you laugh
I’m sorry. It isn’t the least funny. It’s just so unexpected. Is she...is she about your own age
Just about, I believe. She has three children, the eldest boy has just gone to Ampleforth. She is not at all well off.
But, Bridey, where did you find her
Her late husband, Admiral Muspratt, collected matchboxes he said with complete gravity.
Julia trembled on the verge of laughter, recovered her self-possession, and asked
You’re not marrying her for her matchboxes
No, no; the whole collection was left to the Falmouth Town Library. I have a great affection for her. In spite of all her difficulties she is a very cheerful woman, very fond of acting. She is connected with the Catholic Players’ Guild.’ ‘Does papa know
I had a letter from him this morning giving me his approval. He has been urging me to marry for some time.
It occurred both to Julia and myself simultaneously that we were allowing curiosity and surprise to predominate; now we congratulated him in gentler tones from which mockery was almost excluded.
Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you. I think I am very fortunate.’ ‘But when are we going to meet her? I do think you might have brought her down with you.
He said nothing, sipped and gazed.
Bridey,’ said Julia. ‘You sly, smug old brute, why haven’t you brought her here
Oh, I couldn’t do that, you know.
Why couldn’t you? I’m dying to meet her. Let’s ring her up now and invite her. She’ll think us most peculiar leaving her alone at a time like this.’ ‘She has the children,’ said Brideshead. ‘Besides, you are peculiar, aren’t you
What can you mean
Brideshead raised his head and looked solemnly at his sister, and continued in the same simple way, as though he were saying nothing particularly different from what had gone before, ‘I couldn’t ask her here, as things are. It wouldn’t be suitable. After all, I am a lodger here. This is Rex’s house at the moment, so far as it’s anybody’s. What goes on here is his business. But I couldn’t bring Beryl here.’ ‘I simply don’t understand,’ said Julia rather sharply. I looked at her. All the gentle mockery had gone; she was alert, almost scared, it seemed. ‘Of course, Rex and I want her to come.
Oh, yes, I don’t doubt that. The difficulty is quite otherwise.’ He finished his port, refilled his glass, and pushed the decanter towards me. ‘You must understand that Beryl is a woman of strict Catholic principle fortified by the prejudices of the middle class. I couldn’t possibly bring her here. It is a matter of indifference whether you choose to live in sin with Rex or Charles or both - I have always avoided inquiry into the details of your ménage - but in no case would Beryl consent to be your guest.
Julia rose. ‘Why, you pompous ass... ‘ she said, stopped, and turned towards the door. At first I thought she was overcome by laughter; then, as I opened the door to her, I saw with consternation that she was in tears. I hesitated. She slipped past me without a glance.
I may have given the impression that this was a marriage of convenience’ Brideshead continued placidly. I cannot speak for Beryl; no doubt the security of my position has some influence on her. Indeed, she has said as much. But for myself, let me emphasize, I am ardently attracted.
Bridey, what a bloody offensive thing to say to Julia!’ ‘There was nothing she should object to. I was merely stating a fact well known to her.
She was not in the library; I mounted to her room, but she was not there. I paused by her laden dressing table wondering if she would come. Then through the open window, as the light streamed out across the terrace into the dusk, to the fountain which in that house seemed always to draw us to itself for comfort and refreshment I caught the glimpse of a white skirt against the stones. It was nearly night. I found her in the darkest refuge, on a wooden seat, in a bay of the clipped box which encircled the basin. I took her in my arms and she pressed her face to my heart.
Aren’t you cold out here
She did not answer, only clung closer to me, and shook with sobs. ‘My darling, what is it? Why do you mind? What does it matter what that old booby says
I don’t; it doesn’t. It’s just the shock. Don’t laugh at me.’ In the two years of our love, which seemed a lifetime, I had not seen her so moved or felt so powerless to help. ‘How dare he speak to you like that?’ I said. ‘The cold-blooded old humbug...’ But I was failing her in sympathy.
No,’ she said ‘it’s not that. He’s quite right. They know all about it, Bridey and his widow; they’ve got it in black and white; they bought it for a penny at the church door.
You can get anything there for a penny, in black and white, and nobody to see that you
pay; only an old woman with a broom at the other end, rattling round the confessionals
and a young woman lighting a candle at the Seven Dolours. Put a penny in the box, or not, just as you like; take your tract. There you’ve got it, in black and white. ‘All in one word, too, one little, flat, deadly word that covers a lifetime. ‘ “Living in sin”; not just doing wrong, as I did when I went to America; doing wrong, knowing it is wrong, stopping doing it, forgetting. That’s not what they mean. That’s not Bridey’s pennyworth. He means just what it says in black and white.
Living in sin, with sin, always the same, like an idiot child carefully nursed, guarded from the world. “Poor Julia,” they say, “she can’t go out. She’s got to take care of her sin. A pity it ever lived
they say, “but it’s so strong. Children like that always are.
Julia’s so good to her little, mad sin.
An hour ago,’ I thought, ‘under the sunset, she sat turning her ring in the water and counting the days of happiness; now under the first stars and the last grey whisper of day, all this mysterious tumult of sorrow! What had happened to us in the Painted Parlour? What shadow had fallen in the candlelight? Two rough sentences and a trite phrase.’ She was beside herself; her voice, now muffled in my breast, now clear and anguished, came to me in single words and broken sentences. ‘Past and future; the years when I was trying to be a good wife, in the cigar smoke, while the counters clicked on the backgammon board, and the man who was “dummy” at the men’s table filled the glasses; when I was trying to bear his child, torn in pieces by something already dead; putting him away, forgetting him, finding you, the past two years with you, all the future with you, all the future with or without you, war coming, world ending - sin.
A word from so long ago, from Nanny Hawkins stitching by the hearth and the nightlight burning before the Sacred Heart. Cordelia and me with the catechism, in mummy’s room, before luncheon on Sundays. Mummy carrying my sin with her to church, bowed under it and the black lace veil, in the chapel; slipping out with it in London before the fires were lit; taking it with her through the empty streets, where the milkman’s ponies stood with their forefeet on the pavement; mummy dying with my sin eating at her, more cruelly than her own deadly illness. ‘Mummy dying with it; Christ dying with it, nailed hand and foot; hanging over the bed in the night-nursery; hanging year after year in the dark little study at Farm Street with the shining oilcloth hanging in the dark church where only the old char-woman raises the dust and one candle burns; hanging at noon high among the crowds and the soldiers; no comfort except a sponge of vinegar and the kind words of a thief; hanging for ever; never the cool sepulchre and the grave clothes spread on the stone slab, never the oil and spices in the dark cave; always the midday sun and the dice clicking for the seamless coat.
No way back; the gates barred; all the saints and angels posted along the walls. Thrown away, scrapped, rotting down; the old man with lupus and the forked stick who limps out at nightfall to turn the rubbish, hoping for something to put in his sack, something marketable, turns away with disgust.
Nameless and dead, like the baby they wrapped up and took away before I had seen her.
Between her tears she talked herself into silence. I could do nothing; I was adrift in a strange sea; my hands on the metal-spun threads of her tunic were cold and stiff, my eyes dry; I was as far from her in spirit, as she clung to me in the darkness, as when years ago I had lit her cigarette on the way from the station; as far as when she was out of mind, in the dry, empty years at the Old Rectory, and in the jungle. Tears spring from speech; presently in her silence her weeping stopped. She sat up, away from me, took my handkerchief, shivered, rose to her feet.
Well,’ she said, in a voice much like normal. ‘Bridey is one for bombshells, isn’t he
I followed her into the house and to her room; she sat at her looking-glass. ‘Considering that I’ve just recovered from a fit of hysteria,’ she said, ‘I don’t call that at all bad.’ Her eyes seemed unnaturally large and bright, her cheeks pale with two spots of high colour, where, as a girl, she used to put a dab of rouge. ‘Most hysterical women look as if they had a bad cold. You’d better change your shirt before going down; it’s all tears and lipstick.
Are we going down
Of course, we mustn’t leave poor Bridey on his engagement night.’ When I went back to her she said: ‘I’m sorry for that appalling scene, Charles. I can’t explain.
Brideshead was in the library, smoking his pipe, placidly reading a detective story.
Was it nice out? If I’d known you were going I’d have come, too.
Rather cold.
I hope it’s not going to be inconvenient for Rex moving out of here. You see, Barton Street is much too small for us and the three children. Besides, Beryl likes the country. In his letter papa proposed making over the whole estate right away.’ I remembered how Rex had greeted me on my first arrival at Brideshead as Julia’s guest. ‘A very happy arrangement,’ he had said. ‘Suits me down to the ground. The old boy keeps the place up; Bridey does all the feudal stuff with the tenants; I have the run of the house rent free. All it costs me is the food and the wages of the indoor servants. Couldn’t ask fairer than that, could you
I should think he’ll be sorry to go,’ I said.
Oh, he’ll find another bargain somewhere, ‘ said Julia; ‘trust him.’ ‘Beryl’s got some furniture of her own she’s very attached to. I don’t know if it would go very well here. You know, oak dressers and coffin stools and things. I thought she could put it in mummy’s old room.
Yes, that would be the place.
So brother and sister sat and talked about the arrangement of the house until bed-time. ‘An hour ago,’ I thought, ‘in the black refuge in the box hedge, she wept her heart out for the death of her God; now she is discussing whether Beryl’s children shall take the old smoking-room or the school-room for their own.’ I was all at sea. ‘Julia,’ I said later, when Brideshead had gone upstairs, ‘have you ever seen a picture of Holman Hunt’s called “The Awakened Conscience” ‘ ‘No.
I had seen a copy of Pre-Raphaelitism in the library some days before; I found it again and read her Ruskin’s description. She laughed quite happily. ‘You’re perfectly right. That’s exactly what I did feel.’ ‘But, darling, I won’t believe that great spout of tears came just from a few words.of Bridey’s. You must have been thinking about it before.’ ‘Hardly at all; now and then; more, lately, with the Last Trump so near.’ ‘Of course it’s a thing psychologists could explain; a preconditioning from childhood; feelings of guilt from the nonsense you were taught in the nursery. You do know at heart that it’s all bosh, don’t you
How I wish it was
Sebastian once said almost the same thing to me.
He’s gone back to the Church, you know. Of course, he never left it as definitely as I did. I’ve gone too far; there’s no turning back now; I know that, if that’s what you mean by thinking it all bosh. All I can hope to do is to put my life in some sort of order in a human way, before all human order comes to an end. That’s why I want to marry you. I should like to have a child. That’s one thing I can do...Let’s go out again. The moon should be up by now.
The moon was full and high. We walked round the house; under the limes Julia paused and idly snapped off one of the long shoots, last year’s growth, that fringed their boles, and stripped it as she walked, making a switch, as children do, but with petulant movements that were not a child’s, snatching nervously at the leaves and crumbling them between her fingers; she began peeling the bark, scratching it with her nails. Once more we stood by the fountain.
It’s like the setting of a comedy,’ I said. ‘Scene: a Baroque fountain in a nobleman’s grounds. Act one, sunset; act two, dusk; act three, moonlight. The characters keep assembling at the fountain for no very clear reason.
Comedy
Drama. Tragedy. Farce. What you will. This is the reconciliation scene.
Was there a quarrel
Estrangement and misunderstanding in act two.
Oh, don’t talk in that damned bounderish way. Why must you see everything second-hand? Why must this be a play? Why must my conscience be a Pre-Raphaelite picture?’ ‘It’s a way I have.
I hate it.
Her anger was as unexpected as every change on this evening of swift veering moods. Suddenly she cut me across the face with her switch, a vicious, stinging little blow as hard as she could strike.
Now do you see how I hate it
She hit me again.
All right,’ I said ‘go on.
Then, though her hand was raised, she stopped and threw the half-peeled wand into the water, where it floated white and black in the moonlight. ‘Did that hurt
Yes.
Did it?...Did I
In the instant her rage was gone; her tears, newly flowing, were on my cheek. I held her at arm’s length and she put down her head, stroking my hand on her shoulder with her face, catlike, but, unlike a cat, leaving a tear there.
Cat on the roof-top,’ I said.
Beast
She bit at my hand, but when I did not move it and her teeth touched me, she changed the bite to a kiss, the kiss to a lick of her tongue.
Cat in the moonlight.
This was the mood I knew. We turned towards the house. When we came to the lighted hall she said: ‘Your poor face,’ touching the weals with her fingers. ‘Will there be a mark tomorrow
I expect so.
Charles, am I going crazy? What’s happened tonight? I’m so tired.’ She yawned; a fit of yawning took her. She sat at her dressing table, head bowed, hair over her face, yawning helplessly; when she looked up I saw over her shoulder in the glass a face that was dazed with weariness like a retreating soldier’s, and beside it my own, streaked with two crimson lines.
So tired,’ she repeated,, taking off her gold tunic and letting it fall to the floor, ‘tired and crazy and good for nothing.
I saw her to bed; the blue lids fell over her eyes; her pale lips moved on the pillow but whether to wish me good night or to murmur a prayer - a jingle of the nursery that came to her now in the twilight world between sorrow and sleep: some ancient pious rhyme that had come down to Nanny Hawkins from centuries of bedtime whispering, through all the changes of language, from the days of pack-horses on the Pilgrim’s Way - I did not know.
Next night Rex and his political associates were with us.
They won’t fight.
They can’t fight. They haven’t the money; they haven’t the oil.
They haven’t the wolfram; they haven’t the men.
They haven’t the guts.
They’re afraid.
Scared of the French; scared of the Czechs; scared of the Slovaks; scared of us.
It’s a bluff.
Of course it’s a bluff Where’s their tungsten? Where’s their manganese
Where’s their chrome
I’ll tell you a thing...
Listen to this; it’ll be good; Rex will tell you a thing.’ Friend of mine motoring in the Black Forest only the other day, just came back and told me about it while we played a round of golf. Well, this friend driving along, turned down a lane into the high road. What should he find but a military convoy? Couldn’t stop, drove right into it, smack into a tank, broadside on. Gave himself up for dead...Hold on this is the funny part.
This is the funny part.
Drove clean through it, didn’t scratch his paint;. What do you think? It was made of canvas - a bamboo frame and painted canvas.
They haven’t the steel.
They haven’t the tools. They haven’t the labour. They’re half starving. They haven’t the fats. The children have rickets.
The women are barren.
The men are impotent.
They haven’t the doctors.
The doctors were Jewish.
Now they’ve got consumption.
Now they’ve got syphilis.
Goering told a friend of mine...
Goebbels told a friend of mine...
Ribbentrop told me that the army just kept Hitler in power so long as he was able to get things for nothing. The moment anyone stands up to him, he’s finished. The army will shoot him.
The Liberals will hang him.
The Communists will tear him limb from limb.
He’ll scupper himself.
He’d do it now if it wasn’t for Chamberlain.
If it wasn’t for Halifax.
If it wasn’t for Sir Samuel Hoare.
And the 1922Committee.
Peace Pledge.
Foreign Office.
New York Banks.
All that’s wanted is a good strong line.
A line from Rex.
We’ll give Europe a good strong line. Europe is waiting for a speech from Rex.
And a speech from me.
And a speech from me. Rally the freedom-loving peoples of the world. Germany will rise; Austria will rise. The Czechs and the Slovaks are bound to rise.’ ‘To a speech from Rex and a speech from me.
What about a rubber? How about a whisky? Which of you chaps will have a big cigar? Hullo, you two going out
Yes, Rex, ‘ said Julia. ‘Charles and I are going into the moonlight.’ We shut the windows behind us and the voices ceased; the moonlight lay like hoar-frost on the terrace and the music of the fountain crept in our ears- the stone balustrade of the terrace might have been the Trojan walls, and in the silent park might have stood the Grecian tents where Cressid lay that night.
A few days, a few months.
No time to be lost.
A lifetime between the rising of the moon and its setting. Then the dark.