Marathe & Steeply, the technical interview
Steeply, who had made his early career with Unspecified Services conducting technical interviews, used silent pauses as integral parts of his techniques of interface. Here it defused Marathe.
Context
The whole grand debate about love and nation is, underneath, a technical interview (n.44) — and this is where the raw says so. Steeply "genius of interviewing" baits Marathe with "affected more than usual idiocy" he "knew baited Marathe," then closes the trap with engineered silence: the pause is not a lull, it is a "technique of interface" that "defused Marathe." The reader takes the outcropping talks as philosophy between enemies; the operative is running an interrogation the entire time, and its instruments are affect (feigned stupidity) and its absence (the weaponized pause).