The Middle of the Journey

by Lionel Trilling

  To lighten the mood of all of them, Kermit suggested dinner at a road restaurant he knew of about fifteen miles away. They would have gone had it not been that Nancy had Micky to think of.

  “But you all go,” Nancy said.

  “Unthinkable,” said Kermit and made another proposal, that they all drive to Hartford to buy lobsters which he would broil outdoors. It would be a change. It was a change—they were not a very gay company, but it was better than sitting about. They bought the lobsters and a case of beer, and when they returned Kermit made cocktails and broiled the lobsters. They ate outdoors beside the trailer, for the weather had turned soft and bright. Nancy did her best, but she was still brooding. She had been absent-minded as she advised Kermit about the selection of the lobsters, she was silent on the drive back and all through dinner. And after dinner, over the plates of empty lobster shells, what was troubling her came out as well as she could say it.

  She turned to Arthur and said with a simple decisiveness, “We can’t have him here.”

  Arthur said, “Who? Oh—you mean Duck?”

  “Yes, we can’t have him back. I couldn’t stand it.”

  But it was not only this that was troubling Nancy, for she suddenly burst out, “Oh, I don’t know what to do—I don’t know what to think. It’s not his fault—it’s not. But I couldn’t stand having him around me. I’d think of it all the time. I couldn’t stand seeing him. And yet it’s not his fault, it’s not.”

  Laskell saw the light leap into Maxim’s eyes as Nancy moaned out her dilemma. But Maxim veiled the light with lowered lids and did not look at Nancy but poked at a lobster claw as he said softly, “Why isn’t it his fault, Nancy?”

  Nancy began to reply. But then suddenly she was struck by the absurdity of his asking that question of her, for although Maxim had not in actual fact inducted her into her philosophy, he had once been so important in it that he was, in effect, her teacher. She said stiffly, “You surely know why it isn’t his fault.”

  He spoke as if he were indeed still her teacher. “Perhaps I do. But you explain to me why.”

  “Nancy means,” Arthur said when Nancy did not immediately speak, “that social causes, environment, education or lack of education, economic pressure, the character-pattern imposed by society, in this case a disorganized society, all go to explain and account for any given individual’s actions.”

  Maxim was annoyed by Arthur’s interference. “Is that what you mean, Nancy?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We can’t say he’s to blame personally, individually. But,” she said with great unhappiness, “I can’t stand the idea of having him around me. Not that I’d be afraid, but I’d always be thinking that this man killed his child.”

  “You’re upset,” said Arthur. “Naturally you’re upset. When you get calmer—”

  “Who is to blame, Nancy?” Maxim said.

  “I told you—Arthur told you. Society.”

  “Are you a member of society?” Maxim had the Socratic manner.

  “Yes, of course I am,” said Nancy, submitting to the elenchus that was clearly to come.

  “Are you to blame for what Duck did? I mean are you to blame in part?” And Maxim, having asked the question, glanced slyly at Laskell.

  “Nancy’s not part of society in that sense,” Arthur said. And then, because it sounded like a defense of his wife’s good name, he said, “Nor are any of us.”

  “Is that true, Nancy? Do you agree with that? That you are not part of society in every sense?”

  “Well, I’m against the bad in society. If you mean, do I have any share in what Duck did—no, I don’t.”

  “Only the bad part of society does have a share?” Maxim insisted.

  Arthur interrupted again. “But he didn’t do anything bad—he didn’t really kill the child, he meant just to smack her. Even Emily says that. You heard her say that.”

  “Let Nancy speak for herself, Arthur,” Maxim said peremptorily. “Nancy thinks he did something bad. That is the source of her dilemma. And she is right, deeply right. You are right, Nancy. For that man is bad, and everything he does is bad, even if he wants it to be good.”

  “Oh, come, Giff!” said Kermit. “What is this, Calvinism?”

  “His will is a bad one,” said Maxim, in answer to Kermit’s expostulation, but addressing Nancy to confirm her in her perception. “His will is a bad one and what he does is bad.” Maxim spoke like a medical professor summarizing a case to the assembled students. “Nancy’s dilemma is an inevitable one. She refuses to say that Caldwell has any responsibility, any blame or guilt. And then she refuses to allow him to come near her.” Nancy was both the case and the students. “Let me show you the advantage of my system, Nancy. You won’t believe it, you won’t agree, you won’t even hear it, so there’s no danger in listening.” He paused. “You see, Nancy,” he said, “I reverse your whole process. I believe that Duck Caldwell—like you or me or any of us—is wholly responsible for his acts. Wholly. And for eternity, for everlasting. That is what gives him value in my eyes—his eternal, everlasting responsibility. His every act, to me, involves the whole universe. And when it breaks the moral law of the whole universe, I consider that his punishment might be infinite, everlasting. And yet in my system there is one thing that yours lacks. In my system, although there is never-ending responsibility, there is such a thing as mercy.”

  Maxim was not finished with what he had to say, but he paused here for a moment to let the world have it full weight. He went on. “Duck can be forgiven. I can personally forgive him because I believe God can forgive him. You see, I think his will is a bad one, but not much worse, not different in kind, from other wills. And so you and I stand opposed. For you—no responsibility for the individual, but no forgiveness. For me—ultimate, absolute responsibility for the individual, but mercy. Absolute responsibility: it is the only way that men can keep their value, can be thought of as other than mere things. Those matters that Arthur speaks of—social causes, environment, education—do you think they really make a difference between one human soul and another? In the eyes of God are such differences of any meaning at all? Can you suppose that they condition His mercy? Does He hold a Doctor of Philosophy more responsible than a Master of Arts, or a high school graduate more responsible than a man who has not finished the eighth grade? Or is His mercy less to one than another?”

  None of them had ever heard language like this, although they may have read it, and they did not know how to respond. Laskell had no impulse to respond to it. He was thinking that Maxim was not long for Kermit Simpson and The New Era and that when Maxim left Kermit, he would not religiously retire from the world but would go where worldly power lies waiting for men to pick it up. He had been seeing the great executive force that lay behind Maxim’s expression of his view of the nature of guilt and responsibility. It seemed to him that the day was not very far off when Maxim’s passions would suit the passions of others. The idealism of Nancy and Arthur, which, raised to a higher degree, had once been the idealism of Maxim himself, had served for some years now the people who demanded ideas on which to build their lives. It had presented the world as in movement and drama, had offered the possibility of heroism or martyrdom, made available the gift of commitment and virtue to those who chose to grasp it. But Laskell saw that the intellectual power had gone from that system of idealism, and much of its power of drama had gone. The time was getting ripe for a competing system. And it would be brought by the swing of the pendulum, not by the motion of growth. Maxim was riding the pendulum.

  This perception, rather than the course of the argument, had been filling Laskell’s mind. He was not prepared to answer when Kermit, whom the silence oppressed, said, “John, what is your feeling about this?” To Kermit a difference of opinion was a difference of opinion and showed that liberalism still flourished. Yet Laskell, called upon, had an answer. He said, “Is it really a question, Kermit? I can’t see it as a question, not really. An absolute freedom from respons
ibility—that much of a child none of us can be. An absolute responsibility—that much of a divine or metaphysical essence none of us is.”

  He hesitated, and then, because it seemed at this moment ungenerous to be shy, even about a new and untried thought, he went on, “I cannot absolve the world or society or God or my parents or nature from all blame from what I am or do. I didn’t make myself and I don’t dare cut my connection with all the things in the world that made me. I cannot hold myself free of these things. I will blame them when they injure and reduce me, as they do every moment of the day. And for that matter, I cannot avoid my gratitude to them.”

  There was a deeper silence than had fallen any time during his summer visit, although many silences had fallen during that visit. It was a deeper silence than had greeted any of Maxim’s speeches, for Maxim was contributing to it.

  Then Maxim said, “Neither beast nor angel!” It was the first time Laskell had ever heard Maxim sneer. “You’re not being original. Pascal said it long ago.”

  “Yes,” said Laskell. “I remember he did.”

  “But his position was more mine than yours.”

  “In some ways,” said Laskell.

  “Like any bourgeois intellectual, you want to make the best of every possible world and every possible view. Anything to avoid a commitment, anything not to have to take a risk.”

  “Certainly there’s a good deal of shilly-shally in what you’ve just said, John,” said Nancy.

  “And a good deal of name-calling and motive-attributing,” said Arthur.

  “No, Arthur,” Kermit said. “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Childish—he said our position was childish, that we were trying to evade responsibility.”

  They were very angry. How angry they were Laskell could tell from the distress on Kermit’s face. Considering Maxim’s intellectual habits, it must indicate the loss of a good deal of temper for Maxim to have begun his rebuttal by announcing that his antagonist was not original.

  He knew why they were angry at him. It was the anger of the masked will at the appearance of an idea in modulation. The open will does not show that anger; only the will masked in virtue shows it. His idea, which he now saw as nothing much of an idea, had affronted them. They were staring at him as silently as the great mural figures that once had flanked Gifford Maxim when he talked of politics and the future. He could see their stern faces in the early twilight.

  “They are very angry with me, Kermit,” Laskell said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Kermit positively. “Why should they be?” Kermit was a little annoyed that Laskell should have seen anger where none properly should be.

  But Laskell’s remark broke their hostile stare and Nancy said in a way which was not very different from any she might have used a month ago, “Yes, I am angry with you—I don’t like to see you trying to be above the battle that way. And you are trying.”

  He knew he was not, so he said nothing more than “No.”

  “No,” said Maxim. “No, you are not.” His voice had lost all its anger. “No,” he said turning to Nancy, “he is not above the battle.”

  Laskell did not know what magnanimous intention had prompted this. He did not care to find out. He wanted to leave, but he did not want to go while the drama was still so high. To make a commonplace on which he could quietly depart, he got an empty carton and began to clear the table of its untidy debris of lobster shells. But no one spoke while he did this and the tension of the drama did not relax. It even increased, for Maxim, by watching Laskell in every move he made, indicated that he was not finished, that he was going on to say more.

  When Laskell had cleared the table, Maxim said, quite abolishing the interruption, “No. John is not above the battle. He will not cease from mental fight.”

  And as he said this, very tenderly, Laskell knew how intense this last struggle with Maxim was going to be. It seemed that Maxim liked always to have a reminder of death to make his work easier. Laskell put his hands on the back of one of the metal chairs and leaned on it and waited.

  “John,” said Maxim, “you were right in what you said. I’m sorry I got angry—but you can have the satisfaction of knowing that my getting angry shows how right you were. But you were right too late, or too early. You were right for yourself, perhaps, at that moment. What you said showed your moment of happiness, and I suppose I got angry out of envy. But you were not right for the world. I know why you spoke as you did—you spoke as a forgiven man, because of what happened on the road this afternoon between you and Emily Caldwell.”

  Nancy said, “Oh, no!” her sense of fair-play terribly offended. Maxim looked at her to take in her meaning and then went on as if such delicate considerations would count as little with Laskell as with himself. “Yes, you were right. The Crooms and myself are at hopeless extremes. The child and the metaphysical essence—you put it very well. You could have said, the foetus and God, causa sui, the cause of himself. And you spoke up for something between. Call it the human being in maturity, at once responsible and conditioned. You could understand that and want that because for that moment in which you spoke you were moving in an atmosphere of love. You were without guilt. I don’t know what she said to you, but I saw what she did, and I know what you believe happened.”

  Maxim’s eyes left Laskell’s face and dropped to Laskell’s hands which were gripping the back of the chair. Laskell thought: He is looking to see if my knuckles are white; he should not doubt that they would be, he should have more confidence in his powers. He said nothing.

  “You spoke with courage and the intelligence of courage because you felt forgiven. It was a frightening thing to be, wasn’t it? Which is why, as I think, you put your hands to your face. What a blow—to be kissed on the cheek and forgiven!”

  “Giff! For God’s sake!” said Kermit.

  “You were freed from guilt—from the immediate guilt of not having loved Emily Caldwell, though you had made love to her, for having valued her low, though you liked her and got pleasure and help from her. And from the general guilt of other people’s sins, or of their suffering, or of their death. Perhaps you were freed from your guilt of your own death. Does that sound crazy?”

  “Yes!” Kermit cried. “Cut it out, you don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Maxim glanced at Kermit and then turned again to Laskell, conveying that this was a matter between Laskell and himself, two men who could face the truth.

  “I sometimes think,” he went on, “that we feel guilty at the idea of our own death. Why is that? I don’t know. I think we do not fear extinction, not extinction of our whole being but the part of our being that keeps everything else in check. As if we feared the death of conscience in ourselves, or the death of the State, or as if we were killing our parents—whatever it is that keeps in check every filthy impulse in ourselves that would overwhelm us.” He shrugged. “It’s just an idea. It’s not important. All I want to say is that this afternoon poor Emily Caldwell gave you what you think was forgiveness, and now you feel that being human is permissible. That’s why you spoke out of the old knowledge of what the human fate is. It wasn’t shilly-shally, as Nancy says. But it’s the old knowledge—you’ve had it too late. It won’t last with you yourself, John. It can’t. Your uncertainties will come back, your former guilts, the same ones that oppress us all. In a short time you will not even be able to remember what you felt when you felt free of it. You stand there now, thinking that you know us all, and disapprove of us all, and yet do not hate or despise us. You are being proud of that flexibility of mind. But it won’t last, John, it’s diminishing now. It is too late for that—the Renaissance is dead. You could have kept that kind of mind up to fifty years ago, vestigially even up to ten years ago. But now it is dead and what you feel is only a ghost. You know it as well as I do—the day for being human in the way you feel now is over. Gone. Done for. Finished. Maybe it will come again. But not for a long time, John, not until the Crooms and I have won an
d established ourselves against the anarchy of the world.”

  “The Crooms and you!” said Arthur, and was too outraged to say more.

  “My God!” said Nancy.

  Laskell wondered if any man had ever made an attempt on another man such as Maxim was making upon him.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur. I’m sorry, Nancy.” And Maxim’s expression of regret was scarcely ironic. He really seemed to apologize for the alliance he insisted on. “I’m sorry—but we must go hand in hand. Let it be our open secret. You will preach the law for the masses. I will preach the law for the leaders. For the masses, rights and the freedom from blame. For the leaders, duties and nothing but blame, from without and from within. We will hate each other and we will make the new world. And when we’ve made it and it has done its work, then maybe we will resurrect John Laskell. But resurrection implies—” And he shrugged.

  “Giff, I swear I think you’re crazy,” Kermit said earnestly. “I swear I do.”

  “He is crazy. He’s insane,” Nancy said.

  “No,” said Laskell. “He’s not.”

  Maxim pointed his finger at Laskell. “Remember it!” he said to the others. “It is the last time that you will see it.” He spoke gaily, as if the conversation had been the brightest, most successful nonsense among friends. “The supreme act of the humanistic critical intelligence—it perceives the cogency of the argument and acquiesces in the fact of its own extinction.”

  “You have been very clever, Maxim,” said Laskell. “Cleverer than I thought a man could ever be. But you are wrong on one point—I do not acquiesce.”

  “Yes,” said Maxim, still in his gay, bright excitement. “Of course I was wrong. You cannot possibly acquiesce. But it does not matter, John,” he said kindly, “whether you do or not.”

  “It matters,” Laskell said. “Oh, it matters very much. It is the only thing that matters. The world is full of open secrets, Maxim, and one of them is the ferocity—”

  “If you had said ‘tenacity,’ the tenacity of your kind of mind, that might have made sense. But if you defend yourself with ferocity, John, we have won—we take you into camp. Better wait for the resurrection, John.”