A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [61]
To my great surprise, Monsieur Dubuisson began to discuss this situation with me one evening, when we found ourselves alone together in the garden. It had been another bakingly hot day, and the white dust lay thick on the leaves of the shrubs, and over the battered seat upon which I was sitting. I was reading Bel-Ami, discovered among the books – on the whole not a very exciting collection – kept in the glass cabinet in the hall. Monsieur Dubuisson had been walking up and down one of the paths, studying a newspaper. Now he came across the withered grass, and sat down beside me, at the same time taking from the pocket of his black alpaca coat his pipe, of which – like Peter Templer – he was, for some reason, immensely proud. As usual he cleared his throat several times before speaking, and then, leaning backwards, spat sideways over the seat. In his slow, disapproving voice he said: “I think it would be a – a little absurd if I talked French to you in view of our – our relative mastery of each other’s tongue. Do you agree, Jenkins, yes?”
“Absolutely.”
One had to admit that he spoke English remarkably well, in spite of the hesitations made necessary by the subtlety of his processes of thought. There could be no doubt that every sentence was intended to knock you down by its penetrative brilliance. Smiling quietly to himself, as if at some essentially witty conception that he was inwardly playing with, and withheld only because its discernment was not for everybody, he began slowly to fill his pipe with tobacco – again like Peter’s – that smelt peculiarly abominable.
“There seems to be a regular falling-out between our good friends from the north,” he said.
I agreed.
“You and I,” said Monsieur Dubuisson, “belong to nations who have solved their different problems in different ways.”
I admitted that this assertion was undeniable.
“Our countries have even, as you would say, agreed to differ. You lean on tradition: we on logic.”
I was not then aware how many times I was to be informed of this contrast in national character on future occasions by Frenchmen whose paths I might happen to cross; and again I concurred.
“As I understand the affair,” went on Monsieur Dubuisson, “as I understand the circumstances of the matter, it would be difficult to achieve something in the nature of a reconciliation.”
“Very difficult, I —”
“It would be difficult, because it would be hard to determine whether an appeal should be made, on the one hand, to your congenital leaning towards tradition: or, on the other, to our characteristic preference for logic. Do you agree? The way may even lie near some Scandinavian fusion of these two ideas. You read Strindberg?”
“I have heard of him.”
“I think our Swedish friend, Lundquist, is quite pleased with himself,” said Monsieur Dubuisson, allowing me no opportunity to interrupt his train of thought: at the same time nodding and smiling, as a speaker personally familiar with the exquisite sensations that being pleased with oneself could impart to the whole being. “Örn, on the other hand, always seems to have the blues. During the war I knew some of your countrymen of that type. Always down at the mouth.”
“Did you see a lot of the British Army?”
“Towards the end, quite a lot. It was obvious, speaking English as I do. For three months I was second-in-command to a battalion. I was wounded twice and have four citations.”
I asked if he had ever come across my father in Paris; but, although Monsieur Dubuisson was unwilling to admit that they had never met – and assured me that he had heard Commandant Leroy speak of my father in the highest terms – it seemed