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325713e
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He shrugged his shoulders to shift the pain of failure - the pain of failure that is so much greater than the pleasure of success.
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Ian Fleming |
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12168e3
|
Bond slowly, wearily bent his head and looked at the ground between his spread hands. It was the girl, Tilly. She was watching the buildings below. She had a rifle - a rifle that must have been among the innocent golf clubs - ready to fire on them. Damn and blast the silly bitch!
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Ian Fleming |
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ab9f089
|
A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.' 'Oui, monsieur.' 'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?' 'Certainly, monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea. 'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter. Bond laughed. 'When I'm ... er ... concentrating,' he explained, 'I never h..
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Ian Fleming |
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25bb20f
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Benzedrine,' he said. 'I rang up my secretary before dinner and asked her to wangle some out of the surgery at Headquarters.
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Ian Fleming |
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7291f2b
|
Bond closed his eyes and waited for the pain. He knew that the beginning of torture is the worst. There is a parabola of agony. A crescendo leading up to a peak and then the nerves are blunted and react progressively less until unconsciousness and death. All he could do was to pray for the peak, pray that his spirit would hold out so long and then accept the long free-wheel down to the final blackout. He had been told by colleagues who had ..
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Ian Fleming |
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983ce8a
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Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity.
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Ian Fleming |
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1aaa87b
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A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.' 'Oui, monsieur.' 'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?' 'Certainly, monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.
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Ian Fleming |
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6834119
|
Leiter chuckled and reached in his left-hand pocket for a dime as they came to the Henry Hudson Bridge toll.
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Ian Fleming |
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546592f
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There was a sharp 'phut', no louder than a bubble of air escaping from a tube of toothpaste. No other noise at all, and suddenly Le Chiffre had grown another eye, a third eye on a level with the other two, right where the thick nose started to jut out below the forehead. It was a small black eye, without eyelashes or eyebrows.
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Ian Fleming |
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91f2bdb
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What a man! He certainly seems to have the run of this country. Just shows how one can push a democracy around, what with habeas corpus and human rights and all the rest. Glad we haven't got him on our hands in England.
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Ian Fleming |
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0bfa535
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On these things he spent all his money and it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he was killed, as, when he was depressed, he knew he would be, before the statutory age of forty-five.
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Ian Fleming |
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3698650
|
Quickly she opened them again. He might have noticed. But the eyes gazed blankly up at the sky. Now-she reached for the oil-to do the face. The girl's thumbs had scarcely pressed into the sockets of the man's closed eyes when the telephone in the house started ringing. The sound reached impatiently out into the quiet garden. At once the man was up on one knee like a runner waiting for the gun. But he didn't move forward. The ringing stopped..
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Ian Fleming |
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74e8564
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He says that courage is a capital sum reduced by expenditure.
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Ian Fleming |
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16a6c96
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This girl will only do these things on one condition.' M.'s eyes narrowed until they were fierce, significant slits. 'That you go out to Istanbul and bring her and the machine back to England.
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Ian Fleming |
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c20832b
|
Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?
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Ian Fleming |
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25ecf10
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Bond smelt the smell of danger.
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Ian Fleming |
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a8a96c6
|
Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation
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Ian Fleming |
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7a78a6f
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All concierges are venal. It is not their fault. They are trained to regard all hotel guests except maharajahs as potential cheats and thieves. They have as much concern for your comfort or well-being as crocodiles.
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Ian Fleming |
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d31214f
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Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One day, and he accepted the fact, he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck. When that happened he knew that he too would be branded with the deadly question-mark he recognized so often in others, the promise to pay before you have lost: t..
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Ian Fleming |
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cefec89
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You're a bloody anarchist.' He threw his arms in the air and let them fall helplessly to his sides. Bond laughed. 'All right,' he said. 'Take our friend Le Chiffre. It's simple enough to say he was an evil man, at least it's simple enough for me because he did evil things to me. If he was here now, I wouldn't hesitate to kill him, but out of personal revenge and not, I'm afraid, for some high moral reason or for the sake of my country.
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Ian Fleming |
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71b0ba0
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He looked up at Mathis to see how bored he was getting with these introspective refinements of what, to Mathis, was a simple question of duty. Mathis smiled back at him.
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Ian Fleming |
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5d64526
|
Now in order to tell the difference between good and evil, we have manufactured two images representing the extremes - representing the deepest black and the purest white - and we call them God and the Devil. But in doing so we have cheated a bit. God is a clear image, you can see every hair on His beard. But the Devil. What does he look like?' Bond looked triumphantly at Mathis. Mathis laughed ironically.
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Ian Fleming |
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e4f414a
|
There's a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there's no Evil Book about evil and how to be bad. The Devil has no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parable..
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Ian Fleming |
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0b3bd30
|
So,' continued Bond, warming to his argument, 'Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acqu..
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Ian Fleming |
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150154f
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I do believe I'm tight,' she said, 'how disgraceful. Please, James, don't be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay.
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Ian Fleming |
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055fde9
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Out of the mouth of the huge, shadowed poster, between the great violet lips, half-open in ecstasy, the dark shape of a man emerged and hung down like a worm from the mouth of a corpse.
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Ian Fleming |
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2de069d
|
Bond swallowed. He looked over towards Vesper. Felix Leiter was again standing beside her. He grinned slightly and Bond smiled back and raised his hand from the table in a small gesture of benediction.
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Ian Fleming |
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dc92165
|
During the next two days James Bond was permanently in this state without regaining consciousness. He watched the procession of his dreams go by without any effort to disturb their sequence, although many of them were terrifying and all were painful. He knew that he was in a bed and that he was lying on his back and could not move and in one of his twilight moments he thought there were people round him, but he made no effort to open his ey..
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Ian Fleming |
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ff843c3
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Tears of forlornness and self-pity welled out of his eyes.
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Ian Fleming |
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864201a
|
And what an honour to have been chosen. How silly to have been so frightened! Naturally the great leaders of the State would not allow harm to come to an innocent citizen who worked hard and had no black marks on her zapiska. Suddenly she felt immensely grateful to the father-figure that was the State, and proud that she would now have a chance to repay some of her debt. Even the Klebb woman wasn't really so bad after all.
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Ian Fleming |
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44b7584
|
Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.' He laughed. 'But don't let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.' With a wave of the hand he shut the door. 'Hey,' shouted Bond. But the footsteps went quickly off down the passage.
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Ian Fleming |
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2ad3c0c
|
particular line of business, peace had reigned for nearly a year. And peace was killing him.
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Ian Fleming |
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c970a59
|
She looked at him and saw that his nostrils were slightly flared. In other respects he seemed completely at ease, acknowledging cheerfully the greetings of the Casino functionaries.
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Ian Fleming |
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f244771
|
Where am I?' he asked and was surprised that his voice sounded firm and clear.
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Ian Fleming |
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298f9b8
|
Bond closed his eyes and mentally explored his body. The worst pain was in his wrists and ankles and in his right hand where the Russian had cut him. In the centre of the body there was no feeling. He assumed that he had been given a local anaesthetic. The rest of his body ached dully as if he had been beaten all over. He could feel the pressure of bandages everywhere and his unshaven neck and chin prickled against the sheets. From the feel..
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Ian Fleming |
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cffb0fe
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When he spoke he was forthright. 'You have a lot of questions to ask, my dear Mr Bond,' he said in excellent English, 'and I can tell you most of the answers. I do not want you to waste your strength, so I will give you the salient facts and then you may have a few minutes with Monsieur Mathis who wishes to obtain one or two details from you. It is really too early for this talk, but I wish to set your mind at rest so that we can proceed wi..
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Ian Fleming |
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560bbe6
|
Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M. himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M., let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London.
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Ian Fleming |
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7d29ad0
|
Head of S., thought Bond. They're certainly giving me the red carpet treatment.
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Ian Fleming |
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833835d
|
Mathis moved his chair close to hers and said softly: 'That is a very good friend of mine. I am glad you have met each other. I can already feel the ice-floes on the two rivers breaking up.' He smiled. 'I don't think Bond has ever been melted. It will be a new experience for him. And for you.' She did not answer him directly. 'He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless in his ..
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Ian Fleming |
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27c2874
|
She answered perfunctorily. She said that, of course, they had picked out the two gunmen, but had thought nothing of it when the man with the stick had gone to stand behind Bond's chair. They could not believe that anything would be attempted in the Casino itself. Directly Bond and Leiter had left to walk over to the hotel, she had telephoned Paris and told M.'s representative of the result of the game. She had had to speak guardedly and th..
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Ian Fleming |
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7a1d16f
|
There was a scream of tortured rubber as the tyres caught the boulevard in a harsh left-handed turn, the deafening echo of a Citroen's exhaust in second gear, a crash into top, then a swiftly diminishing crackle as the car hared off between the shops on the main street towards the coast-road.
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Ian Fleming |
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2d100e3
|
By the time Bond had taken in these details, he had come to within fifty yards of the two men. He was reflecting on the ranges of various types of weapon and the possibilities of cover when an extraordinary and terrible scene was enacted. Red-man seemed to give a short nod to Blue-man. With a quick movement Blue-man unslung his blue camera case. Blue-man, and Bond could not see exactly as the trunk of a plane-tree beside him just then inter..
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Ian Fleming |
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5b28d78
|
Stupefied, but unharmed, he allowed Mathis to lead him off towards the Splendide from which guests and servants were pouring in chattering fright. As the distant clang of bells heralded the arrival of ambulances and fire-engines, they managed to push through the throng and up the short stairs and along the corridor to Bond's room.
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Ian Fleming |
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1d7bd55
|
Mathis turned off the radio and waved an affectionate farewell. The door slammed and silence settled on the room. Bond sat for a while by the window and enjoyed being alive.
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Ian Fleming |