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The space about us here is merely space, no meaner or grander than the space above the shacks and tenements and temples and offices of the capital. Space is space, life is life, everywhere the same.
“Nothing is worse than what we can imagine,”
Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization; and upon this resolution I based the conduct of my administration. (I say this who now keep a barbarian girl for my bed!)
She is making an effort to be clear; but perhaps she intends, “If you had wanted to do it you would have done it.” In the makeshift language we share there are no nuances.
I am like an incompetent schoolmaster, fishing about with my maieutic forceps when I ought to be filling her with the truth.
“How I have missed you!” she sighs. “What a pleasure to be back!” I whisper. And what a pleasure to be lied to so flatteringly!
“But surely,” he says, “if we are to be frank, that is what war is about: compelling a choice on someone who would not otherwise make it.”
How do you eradicate contempt, especially when that contempt is founded on nothing more substantial than differences in table manners, variations in the structure of the eyelid?
“Besides, it is good for the morale of their comrades. They should not think that they too might die in the desert and lie forgotten. What we can do to ease their dread of having to leave this beautiful earth must be done. After all, it is we who lead them into these dangers.”
“Why?” The word falls with deathly softness from her lips. She knows that it confounds me, has confounded me from the beginning.
