Sylvia, who was thinking of other things, asked: ‘What was the name?’
Tietjens answered:
‘I don’t know, I don’t know to this day…The point is that when I knew that I didn’t know that name, I was as ignorant, as uninstructed, as a new–born babe and much more worried about it…The Koran says—I’ve got as far as K in my reading of the Encyclopaedia Britannica every afternoon at Mrs Wannop’s—“The strong man when smitten is smitten in his pride!”…Of course I got King’s Regs. and the M.M.L. and Infantry Field Training and all the A.C.I.s to date by heart very quickly. And that’s all a British officer is really encouraged to know…
‘Oh, Christopher!’ Sylvia said. ‘You read that encyclopaedia; it’s pitiful. You used to despise it so.’
‘That’s what’s meant by “smitten in his pride,”‘Tietjens said.
