unforgivable

Two bus routes go down this street, using the same bus stops (whether they are sheltered benches or just signs by the side of the road.) Sometimes a person stands at the bus stop, and waves the bus on before it pulls over--the person is waiting for the other bus, no need to stop unless somebody wants to get off. This is all background for a conversation I overheard this morning.

A: You're only making it worse. If you weren't so inconsiderate, if you--
B: I'm really sorry. I didn't see--
A: Stop apologizing! If you would only pay more attention to the people around you, if you weren't so selfish and rude, you wouldn't--
B: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--
A: Apologizing only makes it worse. You waved that bus on like you were the only person at the stop, like you're the only person in the world who matters, and now you try to say "I'm sorry" like that's any help for me being late for work!
B: Ok, what do you want from me?
A: I want you to pay attention! Show some consideration!

The scolding went on and on. It had probably started a minute or two before they got on the bus, and showed every sign of continuing all the way to the end of the line. The participants did not look like people with a previous connection, though not all connections are evident. I'm not sure how much it matters whether or not there is any connection, for people who are just listening. For considering whether or not to intervene, it seems more appropriate for a stranger to step into a dispute between two people who just met than into a similar-sounding dispute that is one facet of a long and complicated relationship. It was very uncomfortable to listen to, regardless if they were neighbors with a long history of resentment or if they met this morning for the first time. (I really don't think they were lovers, siblings, parent and grown child, or friends.) A lot of people put headphones on. Some got off the bus. Nobody said anything to them. What is there to say?

( edited for LJ-cut to protect vs obscure earworm )

so that's where it came from!

A few weeks ago, I was at the Cambridge Public Library when I remembered I wanted to read Peter Fleming's _Brazilian Adventures_, which the Cambridge Public Library does not have. They did, however, have Fleming's _News From Tartary_, which was disturbingly funny in a few places and charming all the way through.

It's the story of Fleming and his friend Kini Malliart (a Swiss journalist) traveling the Silk Road from Peking to Northern India in 1937. They hitchhiked on trucks for the first and last bits, where there were roads and motor traffic. Then it was a matter of buying horses or camels according to the terrain, and hiring guides across staggering language barriers. The back cover says "Made without the knowledge of the Chinese government, the trip often endangered the lives of the travelers, and on several occasions the chances of their return seemed slight. Fortunately Mr. Fleming proved adept with a .22 rook rifle..." To my mind, that looks more combative than the story inside, which contains many instances of how fortunate he was to kill [small animal] with the rook rifle, how [small animal] stew was so much more interesting than eternally eating porridge from the grain they carried, and how people they could not really talk to seemed to become friendlier when invited to share stew. The "chances of their return seemed slight" looked like matters of getting permission to cross international borders, not of anyone wanting to kill them. Though I could have misread some of Fleming's understatement.

Anyhow, near the end of the journey, in Kashgar, they are welcomed by the British Consulate and there is a party honoring them, also celebrating triumphs by British and Soviet medical teams.
(from _News from Tartary_, p.331)
"Speeches were made by almost everyone, but General Liu Pin's was the one I liked the best. He spoke with an air of pugnacity, in hoarse Chinese; and though he paused every now and then for his remarks to be translated by the widely scattered interpreters into English, Russian, and Turki, he never paused for long. The interpreters, however, stuck to their guns like men, so that very soon four speeches were being made in four languages, simultaneously and at a feverish rate. General Liu, who was dressed in a green suit with a belted jacked and an open collar, and whose resemblance to an art student in an operatic chorus was spoilt only by the enormous automatic pistol dangling at his hip, surveyed with complacency the peaceful and prosperous condition of the Province, thanked both Consulates for their help in combating the plague, and ended with a peroration about Kini and me. Both the League of Nations and the Newspaper-for-the-Enlightened-Apprehension-of-Scholars were complimented with a warmth which might have seemed, even to their most fervent admirers, excessive, had not the General brought his speech to an end with the disarming admission that he had not the faintest recollection of what he had been saying or why he had said it. Whereupon, with a loud cry of 'Y.M.C.A.!', he started to dance, uncertainly but with great vigour, and in this impromptu exhibition Kini was soon persuaded to join him. Nobody was assassinated."