Gerhard’s Reviews > Alec > Status Update

“Did I ask for this fuckin’ war? What do you think I’m fightin’ for? I’ll tell you what for: it’s so’s you insurance purveyors can enjoy your easy life in the colonies.”

He’d heard that part of the front was only seventy miles from London’s nightclubs. How much closer must it be to Paris? Tonight at the Chabanais everybody wanted to dance and drink and kiss and fuck, the war’s desperation driving the frenzy.

The soldiers were fighting for love. They were trained to believe they fought for no cause or nation, but to protect or avenge their brothers. Ergo, the men fought for love. Alec’s military education led him to this conclusion. He wondered if Second Lieutenant Maurice C. Hall II, wherever he was, also conducted such inspections, and if his men loved him as they loved Hampton. Of course they did.

Despite the salvos of the big guns—throbbing, monstrous—Alec could hear the chatter of birds, waking above, busy with more important matters than war.

And the bayonet practice! Lunge, thrust, rip, pull it out, finish him off, and then step over the body, cursing your foe the whole time. The instructors always yelled, because in battle there would be no polite conversations. “Scream at him! Cut his balls off! He’d do it to you, fucking Jerry would!”

"Impossible. Men like those two never meet—it’s not fair. Oh never mind. And the way they beam at each other! Unforgivable! An affront to the Misery of the Human Condition. But really, humping a servant…"

And even more worthy of marvel was the scene at his parents’ cottage this morning, no less than a capsizing of England’s ironclad social order. Mr. Maurice Christopher Hall II, drinking tea not from china but from thick earthenware, fired by the potter of Osmington, at a table covered with calico, in sight of that warped and rickety spinet, once Grandmother’s treasured emblem of respectability...

His beauty took Maurice’s breath now—like that of the carved image on the column from the temple at Ephesus they’d seen yesterday, Hermes guiding the soul of Eurydice to the underworld.

They paused in the corridor of Roman emperors. Alec recognized some of the marmoreal Caesars from the books in the Dorchester library. Here they were, with their Mediterranean profiles and draperies, perpetual captives of the barbarians they had sought to conquer.

When he spoke or listened, which (unlike Grant) he did in equal parts, Morgan made you feel that he wanted to know you more than he imagined you could want to know him (or maybe more than he wanted you to know him). This self-effacing quality, mixed with his kindly demeanor, assuaged his homeliness. Plus, Alec judged, his mustache was excellent.