The Confidential Agent Read Online Free PDF

by a great man to be talked to. ‘I can’t help thinking,’ L. said, ‘that you don’t understand the position.’ He smiled deprecatingly at his own statement, which might sound impertinent after two years of war. ‘I mean – you really belong to us.’
    â€˜It didn’t feel like that in prison.’
    The man had an integrity of a kind: he gave an impression of truth. He said, ‘You probably had a horrible time. I have seen some of our prisons. But, you know, they are improving. The beginning of a war is always the worst time. After all, it is no good our talking atrocities to each other. You have seen your own prisons. We are both guilty. And we shall go on being guilty, here and there, I suppose, until one of us has won.’
    â€˜That is a very old argument. Unless we surrender we are just prolonging the war. That’s how it goes. It’s not a good argument to use to a man who has lost his wife . . .’
    â€˜That was a horrible accident. You probably heard – we shot the commandant. What I want to say’ – he had a long nose like the ones you see in picture galleries in old brown portraits: thin and worn, he ought to have worn a sword as supple as himself – ‘is this. If you win, what sort of a world will it be for people like you? They’ll never trust you – you are a bourgeois – I don’t suppose they even trust you now. And you don’t trust them. Do you think you’ll find among those people – the ones who destroyed the National Museum and Z.’s pictures – anyone interested in your work ?’ He said gently – it was like being recognised by a State academy – ‘I mean the Berne MS.’
    â€˜I’m not fighting for myself,’ D. said. It occurred to him that if there had not been a war he might have been friends with this man. The aristocracy did occasionally fling up somebody like this thin tormented creature interested in scholarships or the arts, a patron.
    â€˜I didn’t suppose you were,’ he said. ‘You are more of an idealist than I am. My motives, of course, are suspect. My property has been confiscated. I believe⎯⎯’ he gave a kind of painful smile which suggested that he knew he was in sympathetic company – ‘that my pictures have been burnt – and my manuscript collection. I had nothing, of course, which was in your line – but there was an early manuscript of Augustine’s City of God  . . .’ It was like being tempted by a devil of admirable character and discrimination. He couldn’t find an answer. L. went on, ‘I’m not really complaining. These horrible things are bound to happen in war – to the things one loves. My collection and your wife.’
    It was amazing that he hadn’t seen his mistake. He waited there for D.’s assent – the long nose and the too sensitive mouth, the tall thin dilettante body. He hadn’t the faintest conception of what it meant to love another human being. His house – which they had burnt – was probably like a museum, old pieces of furniture, cords drawn on either side the picture gallery on days when the public were admitted. He appreciated the Berne MS. very likely, but he had no idea that the Berne MS. meant nothing at all beside the woman one loved. He went fallaciously on, ‘We’ve both suffered.’ It was difficult to remember that he had for a moment sounded like a friend. It was worth killing a civilisation to prevent the government of human beings falling into the hands of – he supposed they were called the civilised. What sort of a world would that be? a world full of preserved objects labelled ‘Not to be touched’: no religious faith, but a lot of Gregorian chants and picturesque ceremonies. Miraculous images which bled or waggled their heads on certain days would be preserved for their