DINNER WITH
CHARLES MARTEL
"You are a cumbersome man, my friend, and though
I will listen, I will not always understand." He said
that to me, and it was - right away - pretty clear
there'd be a big divide. "Well," I replied, "I'm here
not to emphasize but to bridge those differences."
-
We sat there, both apparently dumbfounded enough
so as not to be sure the next move. "Pepin," I said,
"your father, what was he like?" He smiled back and
said, "yes, many concepts presented to me I only just
now remember. He took to the fields like water takes
to the rivers. Easily natural, quite plain. And here am I."
-
"Oh the things I do not know - all this matter about
the spirit and the endings of man. What real difference
is that on the plains where I must battle? After Cologne,
I only want rest really - and now I have to form a place,
and even a language. I have already lost so much."
-
A genial man, so thought I to myself. Would he know
the work, would he see the place and the stories he'd be
left with? I spoke : "Do you sense the great divide to
which Mankind heads now? It will all work out -
eventually - take it from me, but there shall be, before
that, so much more carnage and death. You'll see. Man
can, it seems, never rest until he thinks he's achieved a
'certainty' - of which there is none and which is foolish
to even try and see. You should walk slowly, and keep
all that in mind." He smiled back, in almost a sadness
of a gentle nature. "Mark these words," he then said, "I
will try to kill only when and as I must. Is that OK?"
-
"Well, yes, I guess," I said, "but don't get lost within it all."
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