Honey for the bears, p.24
Honey for the Bears, page 24
Paul recognized the music. It was the last movement of the Fifth Symphony of Sibelius. He suddenly felt drunkenly confident: the Finnish bottled ale was not so mild after all. ‘You’ve sent me away nearly naked,’ he said. ‘Toothless, wifeless—ah, never mind. I don’t even know what I am any more—sexually, I mean. Still, Shakespeare’s sexual orientation is far from clear. And then there was Socrates. I’m going back to an antique-shop, but somebody’s got to conserve the good of the past, before your Americanism and America’s Russianism make plastic of the world. There’s a lot of summer in front of me yet. Listen to that music of a little country.’ The movement had arrived at the recapitulation of the swinging heavy horn-figure in thirds, a noble tune singing over it. ‘You’ll learn about freedom from us yet,’ he said, and felt a doubt as soon as he’d said it.
‘Freedom,’ sneered Karamzin.
‘Freedom,’ mused Zverkov. ‘Whatever it is.’
The movement came to an end: sharp chords for the entire orchestra set in wide spaces of silence. ‘Whatever it is,’ agreed Paul.
Copyright
Copyright © 1963 by Anthony Burgess
Copyright renewed 1991 by Anthony Burgess
First American edition 1964
First published as a Norton paperback 1978; reissued 1996, 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burgess, Anthony, 1917–1993.
Honey for the bears / Anthony Burgess.
pages ; cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-34638-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-393-34675-6 (e-book)
1. Antique dealers—Fiction. 2. Soviet Union—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6052.U638H65 2013
823'.914—dc23
2013015072
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Anthony Burgess, Honey for the Bears
(Series: # )
