The Browning Version Page #3

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What's sadistic?

- Well, the Crock is.

- I don't agree.

He's not like Makepeace or Sanders.

They get a kick

out of twisting ears, et cetera.

I don't think the Crock

gets a kick out of anything.

In fact, I don't think

he has any feelings at all.

He's just dead, that's all.

That is a physiological

and psychological impossibility.

All right. Then the Crock's different.

He can't hate people,

and he can't like people.

And what's more,

he doesn't like people to like him.

- He doesn't have to worry much about that.

- Oh, I don't know.

If he'd give me the chance,

I think I'd quite like him.

What?

I'd feel sorry for him, which is

more or less the same thing, isn't it?

Sorry? Sorry for the Crock?

[ Door Opens ]

- Wilson.

- Sir?

You were late

for chapel this morning.

I have therefore

submitted your name as an absentee.

I wasn't really late, sir.

Only a few seconds, sir.

I was in the library,

and you can't hear the bell.

You will no doubt recount those excuses

to your housemaster, Wilson.

I fear I am not interested in them.

These are your Latin verses.

Only one boy's version --

Bryant's--had any merit...

and that somewhat doubtful.

The rest were mainly abominable.

One boy-- Mason --

produced the most melancholy

dissonance...

that I have experienced

in all my 1 8 years with this class.

It seems to me that the best way

of employing the period...

would be for you all

to attempt the verses again.

- The passage for translation, if you remember--

- [ Distant Laughter ]

The passage for translation...

is the first three stanzas

ofTennyson's ''The Lady of Shalott''...

which you will find on page 821 ...

of your Oxford Book of English Verse.

[ Distant Chattering ]

And if,in the throes of composition...

you should find the disturbance

from the science upper fifth distracting...

you may, as good classicists...

console yourself with the thought that --

to amend an aphorism --

Scientia est celare scientiam.

[ Chuckles ]

Taplow.

Sir?

You laughed

at my little epigram, I noticed.

Yes, sir.

I must confess I am flattered

at the evident advance your Latin has made...

that you should so readily have understood

what the rest of the class did not.

Perhaps now you will be

good enough to explain it to them...

so that they, too,

may share your pleasure.

I --

Come along, Taplow. Do not be

so selfish as to keep a good joke to yourself.

Tell the others.

I didn't hear it properly, sir.

You didn't hear it?

They why, may I ask,

did you laugh?

Why did you laugh

at what you did not hear?

Politeness, sir.

Toujours la politesse.

I am touched, Taplow.

May I go back to my seat now, sir?

You may.

- And Taplow.

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