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and on the contemptible aspect of the half-crazy pose as of a brazen cheat exploiting the poignant miseries and passionate credulities of a mankind always so tragically eager for self-destruction.
I was simply attending to my business.
It would have bored me too much to make-believe.
old copies of obscure newspapers, badly printed, with titles like the Torch,* the Gong
anarchy newspapers
he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed.
unfathomable indifference
For all I know, the expression of these last may be perfectly diabolic. I shouldn’t be surprised. What I want to affirm is that Mr Verloc’s expression was by no means diabolic.
narratorial presence
steady like a rock – a soft kind of rock
secret agent,
A murderous attempt on a restaurant or a theatre would suffer in the same way from the suggestion of non-political passion; the exasperation of a hungry man, an act of social revenge.
It’s like breaking a few back windows in a man’s house; whereas, if you want to make him really sit up, you must try at least to raise the roof.
All the damned professors are radicals at heart.
Mr Verloc extended as much recognition to Stevie as a man not particularly fond of animals may give to his wife’s beloved cat; and this recognition, benevolent and perfunctory, was essentially of the same quality.
Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the capitalist for the protection of property are responsible for anarchism.
And ever since he had never managed to get his weight down as much as an ounce.
this guy hates fat people
An extraordinary expression of underhand malevolence survived in his extinguished eyes.
like a colossal mortuary for the socially drowned.
a coruscating whirl of circles that by their tangled multitude of repeated curves, uniformity of form, and confusion of intersecting lines suggested a rendering of cosmic chaos, the symbolism of a mad art attempting the inconceivable.
ex-medical student without a degree;
Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle,
reminds me of epic poetry
Comrade Ossipon, nicknamed the Doctor,
restrained violence,
He was not satisfied with his friends.
With the insight of a kindred temperament he pronounced his verdict. A lazy lot
He might have meant this as an opening to a complete confidence; but Mrs Verloc laid her head on the pillow again, and staring upward, went on:
This obvious restraint argued an incredible and inexplicable timidity of the big fellow before the calm little man,
‘They’ve only to get somebody for the job who does not know you carry enough stuff in your pocket to blow yourself and everything within sixty yards of you to pieces.’
A perfect detonator,
‘Criminal! What is that? What is crime? What can be the meaning of such an assertion?’
Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of the public.
‘Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she’s worth.’
supreme guarantee of his
sinister freedom:
They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, to terror, too, perhaps.
Impervious to fear!
Chief Inspector Heat of the Special Crime Department
new character
True wisdom, which is not certain of anything in this world of contradictions, would have prevented him from attaining his present position.
an accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast.
rose by the force of sympathy, which is a form of fear,
affectionate contempt,
but not quite free of that jealous mistrust which so often springs on the ground of perfect devotion, whether to women or to institutions.
gave a thought of regret to the world of thieves – sane, without morbid ideals, working by routine, respectful of constituted authorities, free from all taint of hate and despair.
so obviously not fit to live,
he would not have cared how soon he died.
and neither does the professor
He smiled no longer his enigmatic and mocking smile.
sentence structure
Catching thieves was another matter altogether.
the musing on the difference between thieves and ideological terrorists is really interesting in this chapter
There were no rules for dealing with anarchists.
The reports had come in: every anarchist had been exactly accounted for.
so slender a man,
And she did not really see where was the moral harm of it. It would do away with all the multitude of the parvenus, whom she disliked and mistrusted,
she's ok with anarchy/the destruction of capital because she believes it will only affect the nouveau riche, whose positions rely on their money. however, she is aristocratic and therefore would be fine either way
