Lawrence Durrell

'A series of unforgettable evenings now began, old boy. Each mission thought up some particularly horrible contribution of its own to this feast. The nights became a torture of pure poesy and song. An evening of hellish amateur opera by the Italians would be followed without intermission by an ear splitting evening of yodelling from the swiss, all dressed as edelweiss. Then the Japanese mission went beserk and gave a Noh play of ghoulish obscurity lasting seven hours. The sight of all those little yellowish, inscrutable diplomats all dressed as Mickey Mouse, old boy, was enough to turn milk. And their voices simply ate into one. Then in characteristic fashion the Dutch, not to be outdone, decided to gnaw their way to the forefront of things with a recital of national poetry by the Dutch Ambassadress herself. This was when I began to draft my resignation in my own mind. O God! how can I ever forget Madame Vanderpipf (usually the most kind and normal of wives and mothers) taking up a stance like a grenadier at Fontenoy, and after a pause declaiming in a slow, deep - O unspeakably slow and deep - voice, the opening verses of whatever it was? Old Boy, the cultural heritage of the Dutch is not my affair. Let them have it, I say. let them enjoy it peacefully as they may. But spare me from poems of five hundred lines beginning, 'Oom kroop der poop'. You smile, as well indeed you may, never having heard Mrs Vanderpipf declaiming those memorable stanzas with all the sullen fire of her race. Listen!

Oom kroop der poop
Zoom kroon der soup
Soon droon der oopersnoop.

'And so on. have you got the idea? Perhaps there is something behind it all - who am I to say? All I know is that it is no joke to be on the recieving end. Specially as she would pause from time to time to give a rough translation in pidgin for Smith-Cromwell's benefit. Something like this: "Our national poet, Snugerpouf, he says eef Holland lives forever, only, how you would say?, heroes from ze soil oopspringing, yes?" It was pulsestopping, old man. Then she would take a deep breath and begin afresh.

Oom kroop der poop
Zoom kroon der soup.

'In after years the very memory of this recitation used to make the sweat start out of my forehead. You must try it for yourself sometime. Just try repeating 'oom kroop der poop' five hundred times in a low voice. After a time it's like yoga. Everything goes dark. You feel you are falling backwards into illimitable black space.

- La Valise (Antrobus)

Paul Bailey

Despite his efforts to escape, the field eventually claimed him. Its red grass spoke to him. It whispered: 'You're too young to die. You're too young to die.'
'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'
'A handsome blighter like you.'
'A handsome blighter like me.'
He was no longer paralysed. His young limbs moved swiftly, surely. they took him out into the trees, and beyond the trees into towns with foreign names. They took him into the warm night, with it's insect noises and its tiny, watchful, suddenly scampering animals. They took him away from death. They took him away from guns and wounds and howitzers.
Eric Talbot's blood coursed in his young veins.

He it was who found King Solomon's mines; he it was who peered down a valley into the Lost World.
He was called in to tea.
He would be brave one day. He would be fearless.
He would not be like Gerald Talbot, a dull commercial traveller who wrote poetry in his spare time.
he would be a man of action.

Your father is dead, Eric. I've made cucumber sandwiches. He did away with himself; he did himself in. And your favourite chocolate cake. In Hull, of all places. There's jelly too. You and I will have to make a go of things. Sit straight, dear - sit straight. Between us, we'll make a life for you. I bought cream as a special treat. In Hull, my dear, in a common lodgings. Be mother, Eric - pour for both of us. He left a note. There was no mention of me. Or you. It was addressed to Shelley. What a coward, Eric. What a perfectly disgusting coward.

- Old Soldiers

Fynn

Anna thought for a moment, then said, 'Mister, why do you like living in the dark?'
'Living in the dark?' smiled Old Woody. 'I can answer that very easily, but can you understand my answer, I wonder?'
'If it's an answer, I can,' responded Anna.
'Yes, of course. If it's an answer , you can. That's true, only if it's an answer.' He paused, and then, 'Do you like the darkness?'
Anna nodded. 'It stretches you out big. It makes the box big.'
He gave a little chuckle. 'Indeed, indeed,' he said. 'My reason for preferring the darkness is that in the dark you have to describe yourself. In the daylight other people describe you. Do you understand that?'
Anna smiled, and Old Woody reached out a gnarled old hand and gently closed Anna's eyes, held both her hands and settled some inner aspect of himself. This particular little spot in London Town looked by daylight a shambles; at this moment, in the light of the fire, it was pure magic.
Old Woody's firm and strong voice spoke to his God, to Anna, and to all mankind:

'In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise.'

His nut brown chuckle broke the spell. 'Do you know that one? It's one of Shakespeare's sonnets. They,' he said, and his arms swept out to embrace the world, 'will tell you and encourage you to develop your brain and your five senses. But that's only the half of it, thats's only being half a human. The other half is to develop the heart and the wits.' He ticked them off on one old gnarled hand with the end of his pipe. 'There's common wit, there's imagination, there's fantasy, there's estimation, and there's memory.' Old Woody's face turned upwards, his spirit danced and was warmed out among the stars whilst his body remained with us and was warmed by the old tin can brazier. 'Never let anyone rob you of your right to be complete. The daylight is for the brain and the senses, the darkness is for the heart and the wits - Never, never be afraid. Your brain may fail one day, but your heart won't.' He returned like a comet, leaving behind a shining trail of love.

He stood up and stretched himself, looked around at all the faces, and his gaze stopped at Anna. 'I know you, young lady, I know you well.' He pulled his coat closer round his old shoulders, moved out of the circle of light, and stopped and smiled once more at Anna. He held his arm out to her and spoke:

'Thus doth she, when from individual states
She doth abstract the universal kinds,
Which then reclothed in divers names and fatews,
Steal access thro' our senses to our minds.'

Then he was gone. No not gone, for some part of him, perhaps the biggest part of him, remained and remains even to this day. We stayed looking into the fire for ten minutes or so. We asked no questions, for there were no answers. We didn't even say goodbye to the night people as we left. I wondered if we had left as much behind us at our going.

- Anna and Mister God

Anna

I did not go to cherch on Sunday becase I did not want to go and Fin tuk me on a trane to a big forist. It is a wondfull forist and Fin cudle me and tell sum wondfull story about Mister God and it was better than Sunday school. In cherch people make Mister God big and big and big and Mister God get so big that you don't know, but Fin make Mister God so little, he get in your eye.

In the forist I see sum rabit and sum bager and a lot of bird and sum deer and a ded one too, but I did not see no peple becase they was in the boozer and wen I saw the ded deer it make me cry a bit and Fin say it is sily to cry fir ded thing but I can cry for peple in the boozer. Fin say to tuch the ded deer and I tuch the ded deer and it Puft like face powdr all up my nos. Wen it gos all to powdr it gos into dirt and then the gras gros in it and then the shep eat the gras and then I eat the shep and so I eat the ded deer and because Mister God make it all, I eat Mister God all time like the peple do in cherch. But mine is better becase I do it all the time. Not only sometimes like they do in cherch but every time.

- Anna's Book (Anna and Mister God)

Paul Theroux

'What about the rest of the people in the world?' Julian asked. His voice cracked a little - he was upset, and he seemed beseeching rather than challenging.

Van Arkady ignored Julian. He turned to the other dinner guests. But he answered Julian's question. He said, 'The rest don't really matter. A million dead here, two million there - it is part of a natural cycle. Yes, even massacres. There is murder in nature. Please don't think I'm insensitive. I believe the death of one man can change the course of history, when it is the right man and when we are fully conscious of it. But a million don't matter, because it isn't a number in any actual sense, unless it is applied to money. A million dollars is an easy thing, but a million men is impossible to imagine. My five thousand is reality, but' - and here he smiled at Julian Shuttle - 'a million men is a metaphor.'

Julian seemed to sulk at this, and at the end of the table Mrs Timothy Beach whispered, 'My cleaning lady said "A blue foulard - that's a kind of duck, isn't it?"'

'We don't feel a million,' Van Arkady was saying. 'You can't honestly say that you miss all those Ethiopians and Chinese. Their deaths don't change anything, and a truthful but callous person might argue that we're all a jolly sight better off without them. We make a pointless virtue out of keeping people alive. It is one of the follies of our century - it is a mere conceit, making us feel powerful. But it is sometimes much kinder to allow people to die in their own way than to keep them alive our way.'

Lauren was thrilled at this - not the details of the argument but the calm cruel way the man stated it, and she wanted him to notice her approval.

- Dr Slaughter