Free Fall by Golding William

Author:Golding, William [Golding, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Modern Classics
ISBN: 9780571268788
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 1959-01-15T03:00:00+00:00

7

Then where? I am wise in some ways, can see unusually far through a brick wall and therefore I ought to be able to answer my own question. At least I can tell when I acquired or was given the capacity to see. Dr. Halde attended to that. In freedom I should never have acquired any capacity. Then was loss of freedom the price exacted, a necessary preliminary to a new mode of knowing? But the result of my helplessness out of which came the new mode was also the desperate misery of Beatrice and the good joys of Taffy. I cannot convince myself that my mental capacities are important enough to justify either the good or the harm they started. Yet the capacity to see through the brick wall rose directly and inevitably at Halde’s hands out of my sow’s ear. I have an over-clear picture of the room in which he started the process. The Gestapo whipped the coverings off yesterday and unveiled the grey faces.

The room was real and matter of fact and sordid.

The main bit of furniture was an enormous table that occupied one-third of the floor area. The table was old, polished and had legs like the bulbous legs of a grand piano. There were papers piled at each end, leaving the centre for the commandant’s blotting-pad. We faced him across the pad, man to man, except that he sat and we stood. There were filing cabinets behind him and the card slips on each drawer were lettered in careful gothic script. Behind and above the commandant’s chair was a large photograph of the Fuehrer. It was a harmless room, dull and comfortless. Some of the piles of paper had been on the table for a long time because you could see what the dust was doing to them.

March in, right turn, salute.

“Captain Mountjoy, sir.”

But the commandant was not sitting in his chair neither was his fat little deputy. This man was a civilian. He wore a dark lounge suit and he sat back in the swivel chair, elbow on each arm, finger-tips together. Left and behind him was the commandant’s deputy and three soldiers. There were also two anonymous figures in the uniform of the Gestapo. We were a full house; but I could look nowhere but straight at the man in front of me. Is it hindsight to say that already I liked him, was drawn to him, could have spent as much time with him as with Ralph and Nobby? I was fearful, too, my heart was beginning to run away with me. We did not know for certain in those days how bad the Gestapo were, but we heard rumours and made guesses. And he was a civilian—too high up to wear uniform unless he felt like it.

“Good morning, Captain Mountjoy. Shall we say mister or even Samuel or Sammy? Would you like a chair?”

He turned and spoke rapidly in German to a soldier on my left who placed a metal chair with a fabric seat for me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.