Corelli's Mandolin

by Louis de Bernières

‘We Germans do not do this,’ said Günter Weber smugly, enjoying a little schadenfreude at Corelli’s expense. ‘Germans can’t sing,’ riposted Corelli irrelevantly, ‘and anyway, I’ll get this investigated, and I’ll put a stop to it. It’s too bad.’ Weber smiled, ‘You are very famous for defending the rights of Greeks. I wonder sometimes if you understand why you are here.’ ‘I’m not here to be a bastard,’ said Corelli, ‘and to be perfectly frank, I do not feel good about it. I try to think of it as a holiday. I don’t have your advantages, Günter.’ ‘Advantages?’ ‘Yes. I don’t have the advantage of thinking that other races are inferior to mine. I don’t feel entitled, that’s all.’ ‘It’s a question of science,’ said Weber. ‘You can’t alter a scientific fact.’ Corelli frowned, ‘Science? The Marxists think they are scientists, and they believe the exact opposite of you. I don’t care about science. It’s an irrelevance. It’s a moral principle that you can’t alter, not a scientific fact.’ ‘We disagree,’ said Weber amiably, ‘it’s obvious to me that ethics change with the times as science does. Ethics have changed because of the theories of Darwin.’ ‘You’re right, Günter,’ interjected Carlo, ‘but no one has to like it. I don’t like it, and neither does Antonio, that’s all. And science is about facts, and morality is about values. They are not the same thing and they don’t grow together. No one can find a value on the slide of a microscope. It might be true that Jews are evil or inferior,...