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Toby Esterhase is a fictional character who appears in several of John le Carré's spy novels that feature George Smiley, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, and The Secret Pilgrim. Esterhase also makes a cameo appearance in Le Carré's A Legacy of Spies.
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Toby Esterhase is a fictional character who appears in several of John le Carré's spy novels that feature George Smiley, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, and The Secret Pilgrim. Esterhase also makes a cameo appearance in Le Carré's A Legacy of Spies.
Toby Esterhase is a fictional character who appears in several of John le Carré's spy novels that feature George Smiley, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, and The Secret Pilgrim. Esterhase also makes a cameo appearance in Le Carré's A Legacy of Spies.
Esterhase is an intelligence officer in The Circus, le Carré's fictionalized version of MI6. He is the head of the Lamplighters, the section of The Circus responsible for surveillance and wiretapping. Hungarian by birth, Esterhase is an Anglophile with pretensions of being a British gentleman. He often involves himself in either morally questionable or outright criminal plots, although his superiors look the other way due to his high level of competence and loyalty to the service. Initially something of an antagonist to Smiley, due to his loyalty to Smiley's bureaucratic nemesis Percy Alleline, Esterhase ultimately switches allegiances and becomes one of Smiley's top lieutenants, aiding him in a number of high-profile intelligence missions.
A Hungarian national, Toby Esterhase was recruited by George Smiley at some point during the course of the Second World War. Smiley found Esterhase in Vienna, a starving student living in the ruins of a museum of which his late uncle had been curator. Esterhase is potentially of a noble background. The Esterházys held historic prominence in Hungary as one of the most significant land-owning families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the 17th century onwards, though Esterhase's reputation for deception makes it uncertain whether he was merely pretending to be affiliated with the family. This, however, is never specifically mentioned by le Carré.
The Circus paired Esterhase with Smiley's future protegé, Peter Guillam, for his first overseas operation, albeit to varying degrees of success. During a posting to Bern, Switzerland, for example, the pair came under suspicion for organising acts liable to be considered a seditious conspiracy by the local police and were forced to flee the country. Seemingly, however, Esterhase developed a solid reputation as an operative that enabled him to rise through the ranks of British Intelligence. Sometime prior to the events of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he was made head of the Lamplighter section.
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Esterhase is exceptionally short; he's called "Tiny Tobe" by colleague Connie Sachs and known around The Circus as "Snow White" for his meticulously maintained white hair, which he covers with a net when he sleeps. He further gained the nickname "Our shadow foreign secretary" from Bill Haydon, probably on account of his foreign birth and linguistic ability. Esterhase is known for multiple eccentricities, including "dressing like a male model," washing his own clothes rather than having them laundered, never smiling, and sending all of his colleagues bottles of alcohol for Christmas. He has a unique manner of speech which vacillates between ultra-correct English and unusual syntax. Esterhase's former espionage partner, Peter Guillam, indicates that he's something of a polyglot, musing "Toby spoke no known language perfectly, but he spoke them all." In The Secret Pilgrim, though, he is seen to speak fluent Hungarian to a pair of fellow expatriates, during which the narrator Ned notes that he becomes more animate and expressive than when speaking any other language. Guillam further recounts that Esterhase appears impervious to fear, recalling an incident in which he stopped to tip several Swiss hotel employees while fleeing would-be captors.
During the events of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Esterhase has a son at Westminster and a daughter at medical school. He is married, but has a reputation as a womanizer. No information is ever given about his wife or the circumstances of his marriage except her given name Mara.
Despite his odd behaviour, Esterhase proves himself to be a valuable spy and extremely competent at his job; characters often find themselves conflicted between being put off by his eccentricity and being glad to have him on their side. He has also endeared himself to those around him due to his genuine affection for Smiley, even though they sometimes clash professionally, and his unwavering loyalty to England in general and the Circus in particular. Esterhase is particularly adept as the head of Lamplighters, the division of the Circus responsible for surveillance, wiretapping, and maintaining safe houses. Esterhase personally assembled the Lamplighters by recruiting housewives, vagabonds, and other individuals whom no one would suspect of espionage work, and honing them into an efficient, tightly knit unit that becomes something of a surrogate family for them. He runs the Lamplighters from an office in the back of a launderette, which functions as a cover for their base of operations.
Esterhase is motivated by a desire to be accepted by his peers as a true English gentleman, a weakness exploited by Percy Alleline to coax Toby into supporting him in a coup against Control, the head of the Circus. Smiley later uses the same desire for acceptance to convince Esterhase to switch alliances and support him in exposing Alleline as a fraud whose arrogance has blinded him to the presence of a mole in his inner circle. Esterhase also has a penchant for making extra money on the side through small-time criminal enterprises, nominally selling forged art. Those around him look the other way due to his competence and value as a spy.
Following the failure of Operation Testify and the presumed death of Jim Prideaux in 1973, Esterhase supported Sir Percy Alleline's successful attempt to oust Control as Chief of the Circus. In the process, Esterhase also abandoned previous loyalties to Smiley, resulting in both men being forced into early retirement. Esterhase is one of the first people Smiley appeals to in his attempt to preserve Control's position, citing their past friendship; Esterhase demurs, citing Control's habit of allowing young
