The Lost Life by Steven Carroll Page B

an insult, as if to say that this was not an age that could afford the luxury of subtle thinking. But Daniel begs to differ — and this is another reason why he would be one of the first to be lined up against a wall and shot if he were ever caught up in a revolution.
    He is aware that this special friend of Miss Hale’s — and it annoys him that Catherine has fallen under her spell — believes in what he calls the ‘mind of Europe’, for he has read the essay this idea comes from. He knows full well that Miss Hale’s friend —and he smiles to himself, acknowledging the prim, silliness of the phrase — is talking about a club of the like-minded and like-gifted (and the self-appointed, for that matter) all united by precisely the kind of exclusive idea of tradition that Daniel would dearly love to smash. And although he doesn’t really know what he wants himself or what it is that is drawing him in and on, he knows that what he heard from the German scholar is different and exciting and that he is going to follow its thread and see where it leads him. It has become his passion. His other passion. Without it, he would not be the Daniel that he is. And he wants to say this to Catherine, if only he can find the right moment.
    He spoke with the visiting German scholar and was given a letter of introduction to friends of his in France (many of his friends and colleagues having already fled Germany for France, England or America). Daniel has that letter, along with his tickets and his passport, in the drawer in his room at his father’s house. And, with his mind half on the drawer and the exciting prospect of travel, he attempts once more to smooth his father’s anxieties about his mad-cap plans, which must seem, Daniel guesses, like another of his pranks.
    As his father adds up the day’s takings, Daniel draws comfort from this image of his father at his work (for — and again he is at variance with many of his student friends — he is not disdainful of what they all call the petit bourgeoisie ) and decides to let it rest for the time being. To let it rest, this whole business of trying to explain, yet again, to his father why he is passing up perfectly good opportunities for good work, when (as his father continually reminds him) so many are looking for it, for something that he can’t even explain.
    The fact is, for all his high-jinks, Daniel takes study seriously, as, indeed, he takes thinking seriously. Study, to Daniel, is not simply a ticket to a job (as his father would have it), something you do for a short while because it is required of you. No, study is a lifelong activity. Something he has only just begun. And, although he has told Catherine that he expects to be away for only a year, he is already beginning to suspect that it may indeed be much longer. But he can’t tell her that. Much in the same way (and Daniel can’t possibly know this) that Miss Hale’s friend couldn’t tell her, in that long-ago garden of their youth, that he might not be coming back at all. Nor can Daniel tell his father, who will simply have tounderstand that his son was not born for the classroom or the shop or any other of those solid work opportunities that most people in these hard days (the term ‘the Great Depression’ will not fall so easily from people’s lips until later) would kill to have. No, that something else that he can’t explain is calling him on. At the age of twenty-two he is in the thrall of exciting new ideas and has no choice but to follow them and find out where they lead him.
    As his father closes the book in which he has calculated the day’s takings, he rises, proposing a pot of tea before bed, and Daniel nods, vaguely noting once again the leanness of his father’s frame, the sinewy hands, which, at that moment, speak of a life of simple tastes and pleasures, of someone who grew up in a world far removed from the one Daniel and his kind will inherit. His father is quietly muttering at the sink