“I should have thought that a preoccupation with the past.…”
“Ah yes, I know. The scholar in his study can ignore the noise in the market place. Perhaps-if he is a theologian or a biologist or an antiquarian. I am none of those things. I helped in the search for a logic of history. We should have made of the past a mirror with which to see round the corner that separates us from the future. Unfortunately, it no longer matters what we could have seen. We are returning the way we came. Human understanding is re-entering the monastery.”
“Forgive me but I thought you said that you were a good German.”
He chuckled. “I am old. I can afford the luxury of despair.”
“Still, in your place, I think that I should have stayed in Persia and luxuriated at a distance.”
“The climate, unfortunately, is not suitable for any sort of luxuriating. It is either very hot or very cold. My wife found it particularly trying. Are you a soldier, Mr. Graham?”
“No, an engineer.”
“That is much the same thing. I have a son in the army. He has always been a soldier. I have never understood why he should be my son. As a lad of fourteen he disapproved of me because I had no duelling scars. He disapproved of the English, too, I am afraid. We lived for some time in Oxford while I was doing some work there. A beautiful city! Do you live in London?”
“No, in the North.”
“I have visited Manchester and Leeds. I preferred Oxford. I live in Berlin myself. I don’t think it is any uglier than London.” He glanced at Graham’s hand. “You seem to have had an accident.”