Page 24 of Honey for the Bears


  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

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

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  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact

  W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830

  Manufacturing by Courier Westford

  Book design by Chris Welch

  Production manager: Andrea Grant

  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

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

  Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

 


 

  Anthony Burgess, Honey for the Bears

  (Series: # )

 

 


 

 
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