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Module 1. FICTION
UNIT 5
R. A. Aldington,
THE DEATH OF A HERO (excerpt)
Mr Pollak was a mysterious bird. He had been at Cam
bridge, lived in Paris, Berlin, and Italy, known a number
of fairly eminent people, appeared to have means, and was
a cultivated man – in most of which respects he differed
exceedingly from the inhabitants of Martin’s Point. The
fantastic and scandalous theories evolved by Martin’s Point
to explain the mystery were amusing evidence of the tre
mendous stupidity of those who formed them.
He proposed that George should come to tea once a week
and learn chess. Before this, George had gone to play chess
with a very elderly gentleman, who put so much of the
few brains he had into that game that he had none left for
the preposterous poems he composed. They always began,
most honourably and scrupulously with a game of chess;
and then they had tea; and then they talked.
By the example of his own rather fastidious manners
he corrected schoolboy uncouthnesses. For George it was
all extraordinarily important. For the first time he felt
and understood companionship between men – the frank
unsuspicious exchange of goodwill and talk, the sponta
neous collaboration of two natures. But he also discov
ered the real meaning of travel. Travel means the con
sciousness of adventure and exploration, the sense of cov
ering the miles, the ability to seize indefatigably upon
every new or familiar source of delight.
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