its correct form but said it might take a few minutes. He would wait in the lounge.
There were only two people there, a woman eating a snack in a far corner (the restaurant was unavailable, notyet having been cleaned after a farcical fight) and a Swiss businessman flipping through an ancient number of an American magazine (which had actually been left there by Hugh eight years ago, but this line of life nobody followed up). A table next to the Swiss gentleman was littered with hotel pamphlets and fairly recent periodicals. His elbow rested on the
Transatlantic
. Hugh tugged at the magazine and the Swiss gentleman fairly sprang up in his chair. Apologies and counter-apologies blossomed into conversation. Monsieur Wilde’s English resembled in many ways that of Armande, both in grammar and intonation. He had been shocked beyond measure by an article in Hugh’s
Transatlantic
(borrowing it for a moment, wetting his thumb, finding the place and slapping the page with the back of his fingers as he returned the thing opened on the offensive article).
“One talks here of a man who murdered his spouse eight years ago and——”
The receptionist, whose desk and bust he could distinguish in miniature from where he sat, was signaling to him from afar. She burst out of her enclosure and advanced toward him:
“One does not reply,” she said, “do you want me to keep trying?”
“Yes, oh yes,” said Hugh, getting up, bumping into somebody (the woman who had enveloped the fat that remained of her ham in a paper napkin and was leaving the lounge). “Yes. Oh, excuse me. Yes, by all means. Do call Information or something.”
Well, that murderer had been given life eight years ago (Person was given it, in an older sense, eight years ago, too, but squandered, squandered all of it in a sick dream!), and now, suddenly, he was set free, because, you see, he had been an exemplary prisoner and had even taught his cellmates such things as chess, Esperanto (he was a confirmedEsperantist), the best way to make pumpkin pie (he was also a pastry cook by trade), the signs of the zodiac, gin rummy, et cetera, et cetera. For some people, alas, a gal is nothing but a unit of acceleration used in geodesy.
It was appalling, continued the Swiss gentleman, using an expression Armande had got from Julia (now Lady X), really appalling how crime was pampered nowadays. Only today a temperamental waiter who had been accused of stealing a case of the hotel’s Dôle (which Monsieur Wilde did not recommend, between parentheses) punched the maître d’hôtel in the eye, black-buttering it gravely. Did his interlocutor suppose that the hotel called the police? No, mister, they did not.
Eh bien
, on a higher (or lower) level the situation is similar. Had the bilinguist ever considered the problem of prisons?
Oh, he had. He himself had been jailed, hospitalized, jailed again, tried twice for throttling an American girl (now Lady X): “At one stage I had a monstrous cellmate—during a whole year. If I were a poet (but I’m only a proofreader) I would describe to you the celestial nature of solitary confinement, the bliss of an immaculate toilet, the liberty of thought in the ideal jail. The purpose of prisons” (smiling at Monsieur Wilde who was looking at his watch and not seeing much anyway) “is certainly not to cure a killer, nor is it only to punish him (how can one punish a man who has everything with him, within him, around him?). Their
only
purpose, a pedestrian purpose but the only logical one, is to prevent a killer from killing again. Rehabilitation? Parole? A myth, a joke. Brutes cannot be corrected. Petty thieves are not worth correcting (in their case punishment suffices). Nowadays, certain deplorable trends are current in
soi-disant
liberal circles. To put it concisely a killer who sees himself as a victim is not only a murderer but a moron.”
“I think I must go,” said poor stolid Wilde.
“Mental hospitals, wards, asylums, all
There were only two people there, a woman eating a snack in a far corner (the restaurant was unavailable, notyet having been cleaned after a farcical fight) and a Swiss businessman flipping through an ancient number of an American magazine (which had actually been left there by Hugh eight years ago, but this line of life nobody followed up). A table next to the Swiss gentleman was littered with hotel pamphlets and fairly recent periodicals. His elbow rested on the
Transatlantic
. Hugh tugged at the magazine and the Swiss gentleman fairly sprang up in his chair. Apologies and counter-apologies blossomed into conversation. Monsieur Wilde’s English resembled in many ways that of Armande, both in grammar and intonation. He had been shocked beyond measure by an article in Hugh’s
Transatlantic
(borrowing it for a moment, wetting his thumb, finding the place and slapping the page with the back of his fingers as he returned the thing opened on the offensive article).
“One talks here of a man who murdered his spouse eight years ago and——”
The receptionist, whose desk and bust he could distinguish in miniature from where he sat, was signaling to him from afar. She burst out of her enclosure and advanced toward him:
“One does not reply,” she said, “do you want me to keep trying?”
“Yes, oh yes,” said Hugh, getting up, bumping into somebody (the woman who had enveloped the fat that remained of her ham in a paper napkin and was leaving the lounge). “Yes. Oh, excuse me. Yes, by all means. Do call Information or something.”
Well, that murderer had been given life eight years ago (Person was given it, in an older sense, eight years ago, too, but squandered, squandered all of it in a sick dream!), and now, suddenly, he was set free, because, you see, he had been an exemplary prisoner and had even taught his cellmates such things as chess, Esperanto (he was a confirmedEsperantist), the best way to make pumpkin pie (he was also a pastry cook by trade), the signs of the zodiac, gin rummy, et cetera, et cetera. For some people, alas, a gal is nothing but a unit of acceleration used in geodesy.
It was appalling, continued the Swiss gentleman, using an expression Armande had got from Julia (now Lady X), really appalling how crime was pampered nowadays. Only today a temperamental waiter who had been accused of stealing a case of the hotel’s Dôle (which Monsieur Wilde did not recommend, between parentheses) punched the maître d’hôtel in the eye, black-buttering it gravely. Did his interlocutor suppose that the hotel called the police? No, mister, they did not.
Eh bien
, on a higher (or lower) level the situation is similar. Had the bilinguist ever considered the problem of prisons?
Oh, he had. He himself had been jailed, hospitalized, jailed again, tried twice for throttling an American girl (now Lady X): “At one stage I had a monstrous cellmate—during a whole year. If I were a poet (but I’m only a proofreader) I would describe to you the celestial nature of solitary confinement, the bliss of an immaculate toilet, the liberty of thought in the ideal jail. The purpose of prisons” (smiling at Monsieur Wilde who was looking at his watch and not seeing much anyway) “is certainly not to cure a killer, nor is it only to punish him (how can one punish a man who has everything with him, within him, around him?). Their
only
purpose, a pedestrian purpose but the only logical one, is to prevent a killer from killing again. Rehabilitation? Parole? A myth, a joke. Brutes cannot be corrected. Petty thieves are not worth correcting (in their case punishment suffices). Nowadays, certain deplorable trends are current in
soi-disant
liberal circles. To put it concisely a killer who sees himself as a victim is not only a murderer but a moron.”
“I think I must go,” said poor stolid Wilde.
“Mental hospitals, wards, asylums, all
Similar Books
