It's true. At the moment, I don't seem to be under any particular duress.
You've been quiet for a while. It made me think something might have happened to you.
[He did not think for a second that something might have happened to Smiley. Why would it? They had done what it had seemed to want, until individual crucial points. And the things they had encountered at those crucial points had been seductive, in very personal ways. His experience hadn't mirrored Matine's, but it easily could have.]
But it seems you've only been keeping yourself busy. Have you seen anything interesting?
[So it can tell. Or it had a reasonable suspicion? Either way, it calling him a liar when he's actually been lying says something different to him than watching it call someone else a liar, when he can't know what was really in that person's mind.
He realizes that it may also have been answering his question.]
Yes -- very impressed. Still, I wouldn't want to go down to see you and then find that you'd been completely dragged away. It's not the easiest journey.
Is "Won't, or can't?" another question you won't answer?
Nobody likes liars. Most people prefer to be on solid ground, no unpleasant surprises. I suppose some are harder to surprise.
If you don't like liars, in the broad sense of holding a grudge against anyone who's ever told a lie, you don't like people.
[All of this is true, at least from his point of view. Even earlier, what he had said about thinking something might have happened to Smiley... that could be seen as strictly, semantically true, if no particular timing was attached to the context. He doesn't think Smiley got trapped in the maze of overlapping memories that had been thrown together so haphazardly, or pulled into the light, as he'd implied. But does it seem plausible that something unpleasant happened to someone at some point in the past to cause all of this? Yes.
And he wonders if Medea is who he thinks she could be, but it's better not to be too attached to any one theory, or to try to force the story to fit a preexisting shape -- to assume that a Medea existed at all.]
[All right, he's rather disappointed in Darcy, but that's beside the point. Harry -- is Harry. And they aren't the only people who could potentially be described as "his" liars, but the kids back in Winchester aren't terribly relevant here.]
I think it would be very stupid to automatically assume that anything that happens here is what it initially looks like.
You should be proud. It's a lesson you've been trying to teach for a while.
Time has a way of going on whether you want it to or not, except under very specific conditions. Those would be worth discussing.
[That doesn't mean they're ever going to get any more information than they have, but he suspects that they will, because it's the existing pattern. How much information, and how useful -- that's the question.]
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Of course. But I have to admit it: I've been a bit concerned about you.
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You've been quiet for a while. It made me think something might have happened to you.
[He did not think for a second that something might have happened to Smiley. Why would it? They had done what it had seemed to want, until individual crucial points. And the things they had encountered at those crucial points had been seductive, in very personal ways. His experience hadn't mirrored Matine's, but it easily could have.]
But it seems you've only been keeping yourself busy. Have you seen anything interesting?
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:)
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[So it can tell. Or it had a reasonable suspicion? Either way, it calling him a liar when he's actually been lying says something different to him than watching it call someone else a liar, when he can't know what was really in that person's mind.
He realizes that it may also have been answering his question.]
Where is the Solitude?
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keep moving. i won't answer your questions for you.
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Yes -- very impressed. Still, I wouldn't want to go down to see you and then find that you'd been completely dragged away. It's not the easiest journey.
Is "Won't, or can't?" another question you won't answer?
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i don't like liars. are you one?
don't
l i e.
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If you don't like liars, in the broad sense of holding a grudge against anyone who's ever told a lie, you don't like people.
[All of this is true, at least from his point of view. Even earlier, what he had said about thinking something might have happened to Smiley... that could be seen as strictly, semantically true, if no particular timing was attached to the context. He doesn't think Smiley got trapped in the maze of overlapping memories that had been thrown together so haphazardly, or pulled into the light, as he'd implied. But does it seem plausible that something unpleasant happened to someone at some point in the past to cause all of this? Yes.
And he wonders if Medea is who he thinks she could be, but it's better not to be too attached to any one theory, or to try to force the story to fit a preexisting shape -- to assume that a Medea existed at all.]
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I think it would be very stupid to automatically assume that anything that happens here is what it initially looks like.
You should be proud. It's a lesson you've been trying to teach for a while.
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I certainly wouldn't want to be caught in a strange loop.
[Link is OOC: included for clarity's sake.]
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Time has a way of going on whether you want it to or not, except under very specific conditions. Those would be worth discussing.
[That doesn't mean they're ever going to get any more information than they have, but he suspects that they will, because it's the existing pattern. How much information, and how useful -- that's the question.]