The Janeites Read Online Free PDF Page B

movie, without a word they put three shots in him right in the hotel lobby, behind the desk there’s a clerk and a guard, local man. I’m behind the sofa smartish, they blew all three to pieces, goddam great Colt forty-five, I’ve never seen so much blood. I don’t know what Lavigne got beyond a lot of official apologies, I got a pair of emerald ear-rings, Joséphine has them.” Wonderfully Bald. I have plenty to learn, here.
    “So no belief in violence, personal or professional.”
    “Sounds odd from a cop, all right.”
    “The girl who was raped by the anaesthetist, only her word for it, entire clinic ganged up to say impossible, her fantasy, no proof whatsoever, what would you advise her?”
    “Get a little cutter, held in the palm, do him across both cheeks, it’s old-fashioned but mighty efficient.”
    “But since you’re an old pirate you’d tip him the black spot first, wouldn’t you? Let him sweat.”
    “You’re quite right, it solves nothing. Childish. She can call him up and breathe at him. Fear.”
    “Will it hit his conscience?”
    “He hasn’t any. Miserable bugger.”
    “Your logic’s good. You can only get him through the colleagues but protecting him they protect themselves. Even when they know it’s true, fear for their job, reputation, money.”
    “But they’ll see to get rid of him quietly, and he won’t get another job.”
    “Does that help the girl who got raped?”
    “Plenty girls get raped, learn to live with it.”
    “Less bad.”
    “She’s got to begin somewhere. Who raped me? – poor feeble type – I’ll paddle my own canoe, not worry about his.”
    “Much better.”
    “Place is full of crooked cops,” remarked William indifferently.
    “What d’you do about them?”
    “Nothing. Make up your own mind – you’re going to be straight or you’re going to be bent. Individual choice. Guard work, that’s different. Knew we depended one on all the others. Weak sister there, we threw him out. No choice.”

    Ray remembers – and it’s no coincidence – his conversations with the Marquis. Exactly this same point, of the difference between a collective responsibility and the individual.
    They were in the library. The old man liked to talk with, through or around books. A lovely room, on the shaded side and the light filtered, to protect these beautiful bindings.
    “Fine bindings – pooh. Oh there’s good stuff here but most of mine are upstairs. Here in France we just put on a paper cover. Liked the old days myself; had to cut the pages, some effort involved, knew you’d read the book, then.”
    “But these are beautiful,” said Ray amused.
    “Yes indeed. And some are good. But the English – why do they bother? Good sturdy hardwearing cloth, dustjacket, lot of effort and thought gone into that. Even when it’s trash inside… The world is a very evil place” suddenly.
    “So we say, in the Company.”
    “Books have taught me much, that we don’t learn in the diplomatic service. Politics, bah.” He got up, walked across, opened a bookcase. “You never read Lord Jim ?”
    “No.” Ray thinks he ‘might have heard of it’.
    “A case in point,” said the Marquis, rather in the manner of a minister handling a question in the National Assembly. “Asks this same – interesting – moral question.” Turning the book in his hands as though about to guess its weight, talking to it. “Old-fashioned romanticism.” That might have been a dire disease endemic intropical climates. “Concerns a young officer in the Merchant Marine – a corporation with severe standards. Idealist young man.” (Black-water fever, thought Ray; decidedly not a thing to catch.) “Looks forward to a supreme test of courage in emergency. Fails it. Not altogether his fault, he’s got involved in a crooked deal. Jumps overboard from a sinking ship – only it doesn’t sink. At the subsequent inquiry, is given a severe blame, loses his ticket, with it his job. Black disgrace.”