Graham Greene by The Spy's Bedside Book Page A

upon you; the air you breathe is clear and fresh from the hills before you. Every step that you take leaves that hated gallows behind, and every dark hollow, and every shapeless rock in the mountains, offers you a hiding place from the vengeance of your enemies. But I have seen the gibbet raised, when no place of refuge offered. Twice have I been buried in dungeons where, fettered and in chains, I have passed nights in torture, looking forward to the morning’s dawn that was to light me to a death of infamy. The sweat has started from limbs that seemed already drained of their moisture, and if I ventured to the hole that admitted air through grates of iron, to look out upon the smiles of nature, which God has bestowed for the meanest of his creatures, the gibbet has glared before my eyes, like an evil conscience harrowing the soul of a dying man. Four times have I been in their power, besides this last; but twice—twice—did I think that my hour had come. It is hard to die at the best, Captain Wharton: but to spend your last moments alone and unpitied, to know that none near you so much as think of the fate that is to you the closing of all that is earthly; to think, that in a few hours, you are to be led from the gloom, which as you dwell on what follows becomes dear to you, to the face of day, and there to meetall eyes upon you, as if you were a wild beast; and to lose sight of everything amidst the jeers and scoffs of your fellow-creatures. That, Captain Wharton, that indeed is to die!”
    FENIMORE COOPER

17. SEDUCED WITH THE OLD TRICKS
    Control of the passes was, he saw, the key
To this new district, but who would get it?
He, the trained spy, had walked into the trap
For a bogus guide, seduced with the old tricks.
    At Greenhearth was a fine site for a dam
And easy power, had they pushed the rail
Some stations nearer. They ignored his wires.
The bridges were unbuilt and trouble coming.
    The street music seemed gracious now to one
For weeks up in the desert. Woken by water
Running away in the dark, he often had
Reproached the night for a companion
Dreamed of already. They would shoot, of course,
Parting easily who were never joined.
    W. H. AUDEN

18. AN EXCELLENT BABADAGLY
    rom Rome to Petersburg is a far cry, especially in winter. You probably know Cubat’s, that big, glaring restaurant in the Morskaya.
    Everyone who has been in the Russian capital knows it, and many have, no doubt, regaled themselves with a dish of exquisite sterlet direct from the Volga, for there are only two places in the world where that delicacy can be obtained in perfection, at the Ermitage at Moscow and at Cubat’s.
    On the night of the 5th of March I was seated alone at one of the many small tables of the restaurant, and having dined well was sipping my kümmel smoking an excellent Babadagly—that brand of cigarette that one cannot obtain outside the Russian Empire—and pretending to be interested in the “latest informations” in the
Novoe Vremya.
I say pretending, for all my attention was really concentrated upon the movements of two persons, an elderly grey-bearded man and a young and rather pretty woman who, seated opposite me, were also dining. The place was crowded, but the pair, entering after me, managed to find a seat almost opposite. Both were well dressed, the woman wearing rich heavy furs of Zinovieff’s cut, which became her well, and when on seating herself she allowed them to slip off she displayed a neat figure and a smart evening gown of some soft turquoise stuff cut slightly low, while about the throat was a thin gold chain to which, uncut and set as a pendant, was attached one of those dark green Siberian stones that are so often worn by Russian women.
    She was decidedly pretty, with dark hair, regular features, well-defined brows, and a pair of sparkling eyes that danced mischievously whenever they glanced at me. Her companion,however, was a rather evil-looking, square-jawed fellow