The Manticore

"Ramsay always insisted that there was nothing that could not be expressed in the Plain Style if you knew what you were talking about. Everything else was Baroque style, which he said was not for most people, or Jargon, which was the Devil's work."

"Very good. Though you must be patient, because English is not my cradle-tongue, and my work creates a lot of Jargon. But about you, and what you may do; I think you might create something, but not pictures or models. You are a lawyer, and you seem to be a great man for words: what would you say to writing a brief of your case?"

"I've digested hundreds of briefs in my time."

"Yes, and some of them were for cases pleaded before Mr. Justice Staunton."

"This would be for the case pleaded in the court of Mr. Justice von Haller."

"No, no; Mr. Justice Staunton still. You cannot get away from him, you know."

"I haven't often pleaded very successfully for the defendant Staunton in that court. The victories have usually gone to the prosecution. Are you sure we need to do it this way?"

"I think there is good reason to try. It is the heroic way, and you have found it without help from anyone else. That suggests that heroic measures appeal to you, and that you are not really afraid of them."

"But that was just a game."

"You played it with great seriousness. And it is not such an uncommon game. Do you know Ibsen's poem -

To live is to battle with trolls
in the vaults of heart and brain.
To write: that is to sit
in judgement over one's self.

I suggest that you make a beginning. Let it be a brief for the defence; you will inevitably prepare a brief for the prosecution as you do so, for that is the kind of court you are to appear in – the court of self-judgement. And Mr. Justice Staunton will hear all, and render judgement, perhaps more often than is usual."

"I see. And what are you in all this?"

"Oh, I am several things; an interested spectator, for one, and for another, I shall be a figure that appears only in military courts, called Prisoner's Friend. And I shall be an authority on precedents, and germane judgements, and I shall keep both the prosecutor and the defence counsel in check. I shall be custodian of that constant and perpetual wish to render to everyone his due. And if Mr. Justice Staunton should doze, as judges sometimes do – "

"Not Mr. Justice Staunton. He slumbers not, nor sleeps."

"We shall see if he is as implacable as you suppose. Even Mr. Justice Staunton might learn something. A judge is not supposed to be an enemy of the prisoner, and I think Mr. Justice Staunton sounds a little too eighteenth century in his outlook to be really good at his work. Perhaps we can lure him into modern times, and get him to see the law in a modern light… And now – until Monday, isn't it?"

II. David Against The Trolls

(This is my Zurich Notebook, containing notes and summaries used by me in presenting my case to Dr. von Haller; also memoranda of her opinions and interpretations as I made them after my hours with her. Without being a verbatim report, this is the essence of what passed between us.)

1

It is not easy to be the son of a very rich man.

This could stand as an epigraph for the whole case, for and against myself, as I shall offer it. Living in the midst of great wealth without being in any direct sense the possessor of it has coloured every aspect of my life and determined the form of all my experience.