That Ramsey was so accessible, that was a great surprise. But the oddest part of the whole exhilarating affair was how much Elliott was coming to like this mysterious creature.
In fact, if he dwelt on that aspect of it, he would feel real pain. He thought back many times on his hasty words before they'd left - "I want to know you." How true that had been. How tantalizing all this; how wondrously satisfying.
And then the agony; the fear: something beyond all imagining is here! Elliott did not wish to be closed off from it.
And how remarkable that his son, Alex, found Ramsey only peculiar and" funny" and not at all genuinely intriguing. But then what did Alex find intriguing? He'd made fast friends of the type of fast friends he always made with dozens of other passengers. He was having a good time, it seemed, as he always did, no matter what else was happening. And that will be his salvation, Elliott thought. That he feels nothing too deeply.
As for Samir, he was silent by nature; and he never said much no matter how the conversation raged between Elliott and Ramsey. But there was an almost religious quality about his attitude towards Ramsey. And he had become a complete servant to the man, that was obvious. He became agitated only when Elliott pressed Ramsey for opinions on the subject of history. And so did Julie.
"Explain what you mean," Elliott asked when Ramsey said that Latin made possible a whole new kind of thinking." Surely the ideas came first and then the language to express them."
"No, that's not true. Even in Italy itself where the tongue was born, the language made possible the evolution of ideas which would have been impossible otherwise. Same partnership of languages and ideas in Greece as well, undoubtedly.
"But I shall tell you the strange thing about Italy. It is that culture developed there at all, for the climate is so pleasant. One must usually have a radical change of weather during the year for civilization to progress. Look at the people of the jungles and the far north, utterly limited, because the climate is the same all year round- ..."
Julie would almost invariably interrupt these lectures. Elliott could hardly bear it.
Julie and Samir also became uneasy when Ramsey burst out with statements from the heart, such as" Julie, we must be done with the past as quickly as we can. There is so much to be discovered. X-rays, Julie, do you know what they are! And we must go to the North Pole in an aeroplane."
These remarks amused other people mightily. In fact, other passengers, charmed and seduced to a one, seemed to regard Ramsey as not a superintelligent being so much as one who was slightly retarded. Overly sophisticated themselves, never guessing the reason behind his odd exclamations, they treated him tenderly and indulgently, never availing themselves of the information he would give out at a moment's provocation.
Not so with Elliott, who pumped him mercilessly." Ancient battle. What was it really like! I mean, we've seen the great reliefs on the temple of Ramses the Third. ..."
"Ah, now that was a brilliant man, a worthy namesake..."
"What did you say?"
"A worthy namesake of Ramses the Second, that's all, go on."
"But did a Pharaoh himself truly fight!"
"Oh, yes, of course. Why, he rode at the head of his troops; he was symbol in action. Why, in one battle, the Pharaoh himself might crush two hundred skulls with his bludgeon; he might make his way across the battlefield, executing the wounded and dying in the same manner. When he retired to his tent, his arms would be drenched in blood to the elbows. But remember, it was expected, you see. If the Pharaoh fell ... well, the battle would be over."
Silence.
Ramsey:" You don't want to know these things, do you? And yet modern warfare is ghastly. That recent war in Africa; men were blown apart by gunpowder. And the Civil War in the United States, what a horror. Things change, but they do not change. ..."
"Exactly. Could you yourself do such a thing? Crush skulls one after another?"
Ramsey smiled." You are a brave man, aren't you, Lord Elliott, Earl of Rutherford. Yes, I could do it. So could you, if you were there, and you were Pharaoh; you could do it."
The ship plowed on through the grey sea. The coast of Africa loomed. The party was almost over.