Chapter 1
So we began what Vio called the expiation, and what to me was no more than the attempt to persuade our friends that they didn't know what they knew. This, according to Vio's calculations, could be best achieved by never for an instant showing the white feather of an uncomfortable conscience. Our assurance was to be something like the Stroud aplomb on emerging from the courts of bankruptcy or divorce. To be unaware of anything odd in one's conduct helped others to be unaware of it, too. A high spirit, a high head, a high hand carried one through difficult situations regardless of the strife of tongues. I didn't think it necessary to remind Vio that the strife of tongues could go on even if we didn't hear it. Nothing else was possible when Wolf's fatuity blew the trumpet and beat the drum i
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