Quizz: who wrote<\/p>\n
\nIl a publi\u00e9 il y a deux ans (…) un ouvrage relatif au sentiment de l’Infini sur la rive occidentale du lac Victoria-Nyanza et cette ann\u00e9e un opuscule moins important, mais conduit d’une plume alerte, parfois m\u00eame ac\u00e9r\u00e9e, sur le fusil \u00e0 r\u00e9p\u00e9tition dans l’arm\u00e9e bulgare, qui l’ont mis tout \u00e0 fait hors de pair.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
or, in translation:<\/p>\n
\nHe has published two years ago (…) a book concerning the feeling of Infinity on the occidental shore of the Victoria-Nyanza lake, and this year another booklet, less important but written with a lively, and even piercing, pen, on the repeating rifle in the bulgarian army, which have made him rather peerless.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This reminds of the curiously little-known hilarious “Antrobus stories” of diplomatic mishaps:<\/p>\n
\nIt was during one of those long unaccountable huffs between ourselves and the Italians. You know the obscure vendettas which break out between Missions? Often they linger on long after the people who threw the first knife have been posted away. I have no idea how this huff arose. I simply inherited it from bygone dips whose bones were now dust. It was in full swing when I arrived — everyone applying freezing-mixture to the Italians and getting the Retort Direct in exchange. (…) So while bows were still exchanged for protocol reasons they were only, so to speak, from above the waist. A mere contortion of the dickey, if you take me, as a tribute to manners. A slight Inclination, accompanied by a moue<\/i>. Savage work, old lad, savage work!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(from “The game’s the thing”, where a soccer game between the English and Italian embassies rather degenerates.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quizz: who wrote Il a publi\u00e9 il y a deux ans (…) un ouvrage relatif au sentiment de l’Infini sur la rive occidentale du lac Victoria-Nyanza et cette ann\u00e9e un opuscule moins important, mais conduit d’une plume alerte, parfois m\u00eame ac\u00e9r\u00e9e, sur le fusil \u00e0 r\u00e9p\u00e9tition dans l’arm\u00e9e bulgare, qui l’ont mis tout \u00e0 fait … Continue reading On diplomats<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1825,313,1185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-france","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/kowalski\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}