Spectred Isle

Well, we came across Miss Kay and Mr. Feximal in the display hall, and my father presented me as if he rather thought they might wish to kiss my hand, and I have never seen such withering contempt on human faces. Mr. Feximal just looked at me, and Miss Kay pointed at me with those dreadful nails of hers, and said, ‘You should beware of arrogance, young man.’ My father asked if that was a divination, and she said, ‘No, just his face.’”

“How do you feel about the sin of Sodom?” Saul asked with a silvery shadow of a smile in the darkness, and that effort to brave it out made Randolph’s chest hurt.
“Dear boy, your Biblical exegesis is either terrible or superb.”
“What?”
“The sin of Sodom was arrogance. Which I will freely grant describes me to a T. But if you want a fuck, that also suits.”
“You really are the most exasperating— Fine. Fuck me arrogantly.”

When one expects terrible things to happen for long enough, it’s almost a relief when they do.

People talk about courage, but sometimes I think it’s just a matter of how long one can grit one’s teeth and hold on.

Glyde was watching him, face unreadable. He didn’t speak for a moment, as if he knew Saul had been struck dumb, and then he said, gravely, “You’ve had a hell of a time, haven’t you?”
“Others worse,” Saul managed.
“That is the most specious form of consolation possible. One can always find someone who has it worse. If I’m having my fingernails torn out with pincers, it is unhelpful to observe that my neighbour has been hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

Father and I were always in full agreement that a rapier is a more gentlemanly weapon than a Sten gun. The difference is, when our opponents started using Sten guns, I was happy to sacrifice centuries of Glyde tradition on the altar of survival. He was not.

Lazenby was of the solid respectable middle classes and without doubt interested in men, and Randolph knew, if only by observation, the fear and shame that might have been heaped on him. If you told a fellow he was wrong long and convincingly enough, he often grew wrong.