0438 | ADMT I: A Question of Upbringing | Anthony Powell

The men at work at the corner of the street had made a kind of camp for themselves, where, marked out by tripods hung with red hurricane lamps, an abyss in the road led down to a network of subterranean drain-pipes.

This far into the book, some of the plot might be revealed. If you want to see the quote, click show

The journey was being undertaken in fiery sunshine. Although not my first visit to France, this was the first time I had travelled alone there. As the day wore on, the nap on the covering of the seats of the French State Railways took on the texture of the coarse skin of an over-heated animal: writhing and undulating as if in an effort to find relief from the torturing glow. I lunched in the restaurant car, and drank some red vin ordinaire that tasted unexpectedly sour. The carriage felt hotter than ever on my return: and the train more crowded. An elderly man with a straw hat, black gloves, and Assyrian beard had taken my seat. I decided that it would be less trouble, and perhaps cooler, to stand for a time in the corridor. I wedged myself in by the window between a girl of about fifteen with a look of intense concentration on her pale, angular features, who pressed her face against the glass, and a young soldier with a spectacled, thin countenance, who was angrily explaining some political matter to an enormously fat priest in charge of several small boys. After a while the corridor became fuller than might have been thought possible.[/spoiler]

Being in love is a complicated matter; although anyone who is prepared to pretend that love is a simple, straightforward business is always in a strong position for making conquests. In general, things are apt to turn out unsatisfactorily for at least one of the parties concerned; and in due course only its most determined devotees remain unwilling to admit that an intimate and affectionate relationship is not necessarily a simple one: while such persistent enthusiasts have usually brought their own meaning of the word to something far different from what it conveys to most people in early life. At that period love’s manifestations are less easily explicable than they become later: often they do not bear that complexion of being a kind of game or contest, which, at a later stage, they may assume.

many things one may require have to be weighted against one’s dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction

one feels awful if one drinks, and worse if one’s sober

This might reveal the ending. If you want to see the quote, click [spoiler]We discussed the Trust until it was time to catch my train.