Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (The Karla Trilogy, #1)

by John Le Carré

He would set up as a mild eccentric, discursive, withdrawn, but possessing one or two lovable habits such as muttering to himself as he bumbled along pavements. Out of date, perhaps, but who wasn’t these days?

There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one’s own generation.

‘To possess another language is to possess another soul.’ A great king wrote that, sir, Charles the Fifth.

It’s the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies? Who can smell out the fox without running with him?”

Only at the end, the old polarity asserted itself: the workhorse went back to his stable, the thinker to his desk.