Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [54]
Stafford Nye interrupted her:
‘I want to know something,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.
‘What is it?’
‘Where are we going next?’
‘South America. Possibly Pakistan or India on the way. And we must certainly go to the USA. There’s a lot going on there that’s very interesting indeed. Especially in California–’
‘Universities?’ Sir Stafford sighed. ‘One gets very tired of universities. They repeat themselves so much.’
They sat silent for some minutes. The light was failing, but a mountain peak showed softly red.
Stafford Nye said in a nostalgic tone:
‘If we had some more music now–this moment–do you know what I’d order?’
‘More Wagner? Or have you torn yourself free from Wagner?’
‘No–you’re quite right–more Wagner. I’d have Hans Sachs sitting under his elder tree, saying of the world: “Mad, mad, all mad”–’
‘Yes–that expresses it. It’s lovely music, too. But we’re not mad. We’re sane.’
‘Eminently sane,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘That is going to be the difficulty. There’s one more thing I want to know.’
‘Well?’
‘Perhaps you won’t tell me. But I’ve got to know. Is there going to be any fun to be got out of this mad business that we’re attempting?’
‘Of course there is. Why not?’
‘Mad, mad, all mad–but we’ll enjoy it all very much. Will our lives be long, Mary Ann?’
‘Probably not,’ said Renata.
‘That’s the spirit. I’m with you, my comrade, and my guide. Shall we get a better world as a result of our efforts?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, but it might be a kinder one. It’s full of beliefs without kindness at present.’
‘Good enough,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘Onward!’
Book 3
At Home And Abroad
Chapter 13
Conference In Paris
In a room in Paris five men were sitting. It was a room that had seen historic meetings before. Quite a number of them. This meeting was in many ways a meeting of a different kind yet it promised to be no less historic.
Monsieur Grosjean was presiding. He was a worried man doing his best to slide over things with facility and a charm of manner that had often helped him in the past. He did not feel it was helping him so much today. Signor Vitelli had arrived from Italy by air an hour before. His gestures were feverish, his manner unbalanced.
‘It is beyond anything,’ he was saying, ‘it is beyond anything one could have imagined.’
‘These students,’ said Monsieur Grosjean, ‘do we not all suffer?’
‘This is more than students. It is beyond students. What can one compare this to? A swarm of bees. A disaster of nature intensified. Intensified beyond anything one could have imagined. They march. They have machine-guns. Somewhere they have acquired planes. They propose to take over the whole of North Italy. But it is madness, that! They are children–nothing more. And yet they have bombs, explosives. In the city of Milan alone they outnumber the police. What can we do, I ask you? The military? The army too–it is in revolt. They say they are with les jeunes. They say there is no hope for the world except in anarchy. They talk of something they call the Third World, but this cannot just happen.’
Monsieur Grosjean sighed. ‘It is very popular among the young,’ he said, ‘the anarchy. A belief in anarchy. We know that from the days of Algeria, from all the troubles from which our country and our colonial empire has suffered. And what can we do? The military? In the end they back the students.’
‘The students, ah, the students,’ said Monsieur Poissonier.
He was a member of the French government to whom the word ‘student’ was anathema. If he had been asked he would have admitted to a preference for Asian ’flu or even an outbreak of bubonic plague. Either was preferable in his mind to the activities of students. A world with no students in it! That was what Monsieur Poissonier sometimes dreamt about. They were good dreams, those. They did not occur often enough.
‘As for magistrates,’ said Monsieur Grosjean, ‘what has happened to our judicial