“I have to try murderers in the course of my duties. Their state would be no better than that of their victims, if vendettas were permitted. You might say truly enough that murder doesn’t pay. I should be sorry to see the death-penalty abolished on that reasoning.”
“If you could hang every German,” I said, as I left to dress for the opera, “I might accept your argument. As it is, a punitive peace will set them thinking of revenge; and, the moment they’re strong enough, they’ll take it.”
“A good reason for keeping them weak,” said Carstairs, “which—quite rightly—is all Clemenceau cares about.”
I might have multiplied, almost to infinity, the number of similar opinions, held by the most dissimilar people. I heard them at the club, I was inundated by them at my office and I wrestled with them at Barbara’s parties.
“I wonder whether Bertrand thinks we’re making any headway?,” I asked that night at dinner, after venting my despondency on my wife.
I am not sure whether she heard me; her only answer was to look at her watch and to ask which opera was being played.
“Louise?” she repeated. “Then we can miss the first two acts. I suppose you wouldn’t care to go alone?”
“Aren’t you feeling up to it?,” I asked.
Barbara turned her back on me and busied herself with the wad of her cigarette-holder:
“Oh, I don’t know! Yes, I’m all right! And, anyway, I shan’t do any good . . . I don’t know what I’m talking about!,” she cried with sudden loss of control. “I’m going to lie down till we start.”