Revenge by Stephen Fry
"He acts like he's got everything."
"Which he has."
"Apart from money," said Cade with relish. "His father is dirt poor."
"Yes," said Ashley, quietly. "Dirt poor."
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Cade added with tactless haste. "I didn't mean to say... I mean, money isn't... you know..."
"Isn't everything? I often wonder about that." Ashley spoke clearly and coolly, as he always did when angry, which was often. Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much. Cade's clumsiness had pricked him hard, but he used the rage to let his mind fly. "Shall we formulate it this way? Money is to Everything as an Airplane is to Australia. The airplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the airplane is Australia after all."
***
"Mind you," Rufus Cade rumbled to himself, leaning back in his armchair as the door closed, "you're an arsehole too, Ashley Bastard-Garland. Let's face it, we're all arseholes. Ow!" He had burnt his bottom lip on the last thin quarter-inch of joint. "All arseholes, except Ned fucking Maddstone. Which makes him," he reasoned to himself, "the biggest arsehole of all."
***
"Very few parents come to Speech Day," I had written to her. "You'll find it a bore."
What I had meant was "You dare turn up and disgrace me in a bright print dress, cheap scent, and a loathsome hat and I shall disown you."
I daresay Mother read all that between the lines, because mothers do, and I daresay that I had meant her to, because sons do.
***
Oliver's first instinct, almost before the name and address were out of Ned's mouth, had been to undertake immediate terminal action, but he discarded any such thoughts now. In his world, whatever the contrary assumptions of newspapers and writers of fiction, death was always a very final resort-so final, indeed, as to be almost beyond consideration. This was less a question of scruples than of options. An enemy might one day be turned into a friend and a friend into an enemy, a lie might be made true and a truth rendered false, but the dead could never, not ever, be transformed into the living. Flexibility was everything.
***
"You think I have more than most people dream of? What other people dream of doesn't matter. I always had less than I ever dreamt of."
***
"We're conquering time, do you see, Ned?" Babe called him by his real name now, when they were beyond the ears of the staff. "What do all people in the real world, the world outside this wicked island, regard as the most precious commodity known to them? Time. Time, the old enemy, they call it. What do you hear again and again? 'If only I had more time.' 'Had we but world enough and time.' 'There's never enough time.' 'I never had the time to learn music, to enjoy life, to find out the names of the stars in the sky, the plants of the earth, the birds of the air.' 'I never had time to teach myself Italian.' 'There's no time to think.' 'How can I possibly find the time to do that?' 'I never found the time to tell her how much I loved her.'
"And all we have, you and I, is that very thing, time, and if we look on this as the most magnificent gift afforded to mankind, then we can see that in this place we are one with Augustine in his cell and Montaigne in his tower. We are the chosen, the privileged. We have what the richest man on earth most covets and can never buy. We have what Henri Bergson saw as God's chief instrument of torture and madness. Time. Oceans of time in which to be and to become."
Posted at literaryquotes.
"Which he has."
"Apart from money," said Cade with relish. "His father is dirt poor."
"Yes," said Ashley, quietly. "Dirt poor."
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Cade added with tactless haste. "I didn't mean to say... I mean, money isn't... you know..."
"Isn't everything? I often wonder about that." Ashley spoke clearly and coolly, as he always did when angry, which was often. Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much. Cade's clumsiness had pricked him hard, but he used the rage to let his mind fly. "Shall we formulate it this way? Money is to Everything as an Airplane is to Australia. The airplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the airplane is Australia after all."
***
"Mind you," Rufus Cade rumbled to himself, leaning back in his armchair as the door closed, "you're an arsehole too, Ashley Bastard-Garland. Let's face it, we're all arseholes. Ow!" He had burnt his bottom lip on the last thin quarter-inch of joint. "All arseholes, except Ned fucking Maddstone. Which makes him," he reasoned to himself, "the biggest arsehole of all."
***
"Very few parents come to Speech Day," I had written to her. "You'll find it a bore."
What I had meant was "You dare turn up and disgrace me in a bright print dress, cheap scent, and a loathsome hat and I shall disown you."
I daresay Mother read all that between the lines, because mothers do, and I daresay that I had meant her to, because sons do.
***
Oliver's first instinct, almost before the name and address were out of Ned's mouth, had been to undertake immediate terminal action, but he discarded any such thoughts now. In his world, whatever the contrary assumptions of newspapers and writers of fiction, death was always a very final resort-so final, indeed, as to be almost beyond consideration. This was less a question of scruples than of options. An enemy might one day be turned into a friend and a friend into an enemy, a lie might be made true and a truth rendered false, but the dead could never, not ever, be transformed into the living. Flexibility was everything.
***
"You think I have more than most people dream of? What other people dream of doesn't matter. I always had less than I ever dreamt of."
***
"We're conquering time, do you see, Ned?" Babe called him by his real name now, when they were beyond the ears of the staff. "What do all people in the real world, the world outside this wicked island, regard as the most precious commodity known to them? Time. Time, the old enemy, they call it. What do you hear again and again? 'If only I had more time.' 'Had we but world enough and time.' 'There's never enough time.' 'I never had the time to learn music, to enjoy life, to find out the names of the stars in the sky, the plants of the earth, the birds of the air.' 'I never had time to teach myself Italian.' 'There's no time to think.' 'How can I possibly find the time to do that?' 'I never found the time to tell her how much I loved her.'
"And all we have, you and I, is that very thing, time, and if we look on this as the most magnificent gift afforded to mankind, then we can see that in this place we are one with Augustine in his cell and Montaigne in his tower. We are the chosen, the privileged. We have what the richest man on earth most covets and can never buy. We have what Henri Bergson saw as God's chief instrument of torture and madness. Time. Oceans of time in which to be and to become."
Posted at literaryquotes.