“Now back to my theme…The point is not so much that these capitalists despise their rats, but that they despise themselves and all mankind. To keep their rats contented, they strive to convince them that their rats’ lives are more glorious, better, richer than at any time in history, and, in the end, they come to believe in their own lies. Consequently today the content of human life on earth is what these cheap-minded men say it is. They are jealous and uneasy, these men, of anyone who tries to lure their rats away. They preach to their rats that their nation is the best of any of the nations, and that as rats they are the very best of all possible rats. They even have I-Am-A-Rat days…As long as this works, it’s wonderful. The only real enemies of this system are not the rats themselves, but those outsiders who are conscious of what is happening and who seek to change the consciousness of the rats who are being controlled. In situations like this, public consciousness is the key to political power…The essence of life today is psychological; men may take power with arms, but their keeping of it is by other means…Get me so far, Mr. Blimin?
“Now, rising up from time to time from the pools of restless millions in these vast cities are men who seek to head new movements. Their appearance is much rarer than is popularly supposed, just as genuine revolutions on this earth are rare, few and far between…These men who rise to challenge the rulers are jealous men. They feel that they are just as good as the men who rule; indeed, they suspect that they are better…They see the countless mistakes that are being made by the men who rule and they think that they could do a more honest, a much cleaner job, a more efficient job. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call them the Jealous Rebels—”
“Lane!” Blimin thundered, rising in anger. “You are cynical, that’s all! How can you say Lenin was jealous? He had the fate of mankind close to his heart! We love people—”
Cross was tempted to tell of what Hilton had told him just before he had shot him; but no, he couldn’t do that.
“Mr. Blimin, please, be honest,” Cross begged. “You must assume that I know what this is all about. Don’t tell me about the nobility of labor, the glorious future…You don’t believe in that. That’s for others, and you damn well know it. You and men of your type are convinced that you know how the game goes and you’ve thrown down the gauntlet to the capitalists, conservatives, socialists, etc. You Jealous Rebels are intellectuals who know your history and you are anxious not to make the mistakes of your predecessors in rebellious undertakings. You feel that life has become crummy and meaningless and you feel you can give it more meaning than the clumsy men who now rule.
“The thinking of the revolutionary is a cold kind of thinking; he has a realistic insight into history; he has, above all, a sense of what power is, what it’s for, both as a means of governing other men and as a means of personal expression. That absolute power is corrupting, à la Lord Acton, is something revolutionaries laugh at. These Jealous Rebels would much rather be corrupted with absolute power than live under the heels of men whom they despise.
“In order to test themselves, to make life a meaningful game, these Jealous Rebels proceed to organize political parties, communist parties, nazi parties, fascist parties, all kinds of parties—”
“No!” Blimin roared. “You cannot equate or confound Communism with Fascism! They are different!”
“I admit they are different,” Cross conceded. “But the degree of the difference is not worth arguing about. Fascists operate from a narrow, limited basis; they preach nationality, race, soil, blood, folk-feeling and other rot to capture men’s hearts. What makes one man a Fascist and another a Communist might be found in the degree in which they are integrated with their culture. The more alienated a man is, the more he’d lean toward Communism…”
“Toward rationality,” Blimin stated.
“No,” Cross corrected him. “Communists use rationality. I admit that the Communists are more intelligent, more general in their approach, but the same power-hungry heart beats behind the desire to rule! I’m on pre-political ground here, Mr. Blimin. And you know I’m speaking the truth.
“Now, where do these Jealous Rebels get their programs…? Out of books? From Plato’s Republic? No! Their programs are but the crude translations of the daydreams of the man in the street, daydreams in which the Jealous Rebels do not believe!
“In order to catch their prey, they deliberately spin vast spiderwebs of ideology, the glittering strands of which are designed to appeal to the hopes of hopeful men. Yes, there are men who think that ideas will lead them to freedom and a fuller life, and these are the men who are the natural victims of the Jealous Rebels who do not feel that to dupe others in this way is immoral; it is their conviction that this is the way life is and only the naive think to the contrary…
“Their aims? Direct and naked power! They know as few others that there is no valid, functioning religion to take the place of the values and creeds of yesterday; and they know that political power, if it is to perform in the minds and emotions of men the role and efficacy that the idea of God once performed, must be total and absolute. These Jealous Rebels are sustained by a sense of the total meaning—or lack of meaning!—of human life on this earth. Their courage is derived from the fact that, win or lose, they are making history, that what they do is decisive for mankind. Caught up passionately in such a realistic myth, what will not an ardent man do…?
“These men are free from petty prejudices. They have to be free from such, for it is precisely the prejudices of others that they seek to manipulate for their own uses. They will commit any crime, but never in passion. They work slowly, deliberately, with refinement even. And whatever natural terrors of life there are in the hearts of men, whatever stupid prejudices they harbor in their damp souls, they know how to rouse and sustain those terrors and prejudices and mobilize them for their ends. The mere act of hoping, believing, of being alive makes you a prospective victim for these knowing men! Modern life is a kind of confidence game; if you dream, you can be defeated unless you are careful that you do not dream a dream that has been set up for you!
“I’m not so naive as to believe that these men want to change the world! Why, they love human nature just as it is! They simply want their chance to show what they can do with that world and the people in it. To their minds human life on this earth is a process that is transparently known! They are out to grab the entire body of mankind and they will replace faith and habit with organization and discipline…And they feel that they have a chance to do it!
“Since God as functioning reality in men’s minds and hearts has gone, since the death of the gallant liberal, every event of the modern world feeds the growing movement toward the total and absolute, making the Jealous Rebels believe that they have allies everywhere…Wars, by mobilizing men into vast armies to fight and die for ideals that are transparently fraudulent, justify this drift toward the total and absolute in modern life. Industrial capitalism, whether it operates for profit or not, herds men around assembly lines to perform senseless tasks—all of which conditions men toward the acceptance of the total and absolute in modern life. Implicit in all political and speculative thought are the germs of ideas that prefigure the triumph of the total and absolute attitudes in modern life. Communication, inventions, radio, television, movies, atomic energy, by annihilating distance and space and the atmosphere of mystery and romance, create the conditions for the creation of organizations reflecting the total and absolute in modern life. Commercial advertising, cheapening and devaluing our notions of human personality, develops and perfects techniques which can be used by political leaders who want to enthrone the total and absolute in modern life. Even anti-communists and anti-fascists must, by fighting the totalitarian threat by using the methods of the totalitarians—and there are no other methods, it seems, to use—guarantee and make inevitable this surge toward the total and absolute in modern life.
“There is no escaping what the future holds. We are going back, back to something earlier, maybe
better, maybe worse, maybe something more terrifyingly human! These few hundred years of freedom, empire building, voting, liberty, democracy—these will be regarded as the romantic centuries in human history. There will be in that future no trial by jury, no writs of habeas corpus, no freedom of speech, of religion—all of this is being buried and not by Communists or Fascists alone, but by their opponents as well. All hands are shoveling clay on to the body of freedom before it even dies, while it lies breathing its last…
“There are some people today who sincerely but mistakenly believe that by going to war against a totalitarian nation that they can save the past of which they are so deeply fond. Unwilling or unable to believe that the crisis is as serious and deep as it really is, these people want to launch vast armies and smash the evildoers and reestablish a reign of peace and goodwill—the right to exploit others without interference!—on earth. What these sincere people do not realize is that Communism and Fascism are but the political expressions of the Twentieth Century’s atheistic way of life, and that the future will reveal many, many more of these absolutistic systems whose brutality and rigor will make the presentday systems seem like summer outings. The most ludicrous and tragic spectacle on earth is to see a powerful nation bleeding itself white to build up vast heaps of armaments to put down a menace that cannot be put down by military means at all…Wars will but tear away the last shreds of belief, leaving man’s heart more naked and compulsive than ever before. Can atom bombs correct a man’s sense of life? Can ultimatums alter the basic beliefs or nonbeliefs of millions of men? Can you shoot attitudes?
“Mr. Blimin, if you believe that I believe what I’ve told you, how do you think I’m a menace to your Party? True, I may not believe your Party’s aims, but I know enough about politics to know that I could not change your Party, or, as an individual, fight it. So what are you scared of in me? I give you my word that I do not belong to any political party on this earth, and I don’t think I will ever join one.
“Now, you asked me what am I doing? Knowing and seeing what is happening in the world today, I don’t think that there is much of anything that one can do about it. But there is one little thing, it seems to me, that a man owes to himself. He can look bravely at this horrible totalitarian reptile and, while doing so, discipline his dread, his fear and study it coolly, observe every slither and convolution of its sensuous movements and note down with calmness the pertinent facts. In the face of the totalitarian danger, these facts can help a man to save himself; and he may then be able to call the attention of others around him to the presence and meaning of this reptile and its multitudinous writhings…
“That’s all, Mr. Blimin. I’m not really anti anything.”
There was a long silence. Blimin sat looking at the floor, lifting his eyes now and then to Cross’s face. Blimin’s eyes were serious; he seemed not to know if he should believe Cross or not; or, if he did believe Cross, then in what way…? Finally Blimin rose, laughed, stared at Cross and said:
“You’ve answered my question, but I’m afraid that you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered. Frankly, Lane, it’s dangerous for a man knowing and feeling what you know and feel to hang around loosely on the peripheries of our Party…”
“I came in contact with the Party in quite a natural manner, Mr. Blimin,” Cross told him. “I was eating in a dining car one morning and met the late Mr. Bob Hunter…”
Blimin reddened. Bob was enroute to Trinidad and the Party had helped to speed him on his way. Blimin covered his embarrassment by shrugging and laughing.
“Well, I won’t bother you any more tonight, Lane,” he said.
“It’s no bother,” Cross said.
Hank still stood in the background of the room, his hat and coat still on, his eyes intent upon the face of Cross. Menti had been impressed by what Cross had said; he stared, grinned, winked, and said:
“With a gift of gab like that, you ought to be on the Central Committee.”
“No,” Cross said. “You don’t want men in your Party who can think.”
“It all depends,” Blimin mumbled; he was leaving the door open.
Yet, Blimin was worried. Cross had tempted him, made him feel that maybe he would work with them, that maybe he could be persuaded…Maybe…Blimin and Menti left with cryptic smiles, but Hank was not moved; his face still held that blank, stolid expression as he went from sight.
“Lionel, I’m worried,” Eva confessed. “How could they think that you, knowing what you know, would stoop to killing…?”
“They can’t find who killed Gil and Hilton, so they’ve got to get a scapegoat,” Cross said in a cool, level tone.
“Oh, God,” Eva moaned.
Cross watched her closely, wondering if she remembered his confessional babblings. For a moment her stare was full on him, then she looked at the floor. Suddenly she reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly.
“These Communists are mad!” Sarah exclaimed. “I think some spy with a grudge against the Party killed Gil and Hilton.”
“If they really knew Lionel, they’d never think he would do anything like that,” Eva said.
Cross was numb in his heart. Couldn’t they tell he was guilty? Yes, it was their own innocence that kept them from seeing his guilt; they identified themselves with what they hoped he was, and, since they were innocent, he must be innocent.
“Now, don’t go worrying about foolishness like this,” he gently chided the two women, forcing a smile.
Back in the bedroom, he pondered and weighed his chances. Had he spoken too much to Blimin? But how else could he have behaved? He had given vent to his feelings in a way that he hoped would take some of the pressure of the Party off him. Would a normally guilty man have spoken like that? No. The Party knew now that he was not with the police; they knew also that he was not spying for another political party. What motive, then, could he have had, from their point of view, for killing…? They’ll think I did it because of Eva! No; Communists were not unintelligent; they could not seriously think that. There was one thing of which he was certain: They would never credit him with as much freedom to act as they had. A certain psychological blindness seemed to be the hallmark of all men who had to create their own worlds…All other men were mere material for them; they could admit no rivals, no equals; other men were either above them or below them.
Long after Eva had gone to sleep in his arms, he lay awake wondering if he could ride out this trouble and keep her with him. He was suffering this torturing surveillance of the Party only to keep near her. It was dawn before he managed to close his eyes in sleep.
The next morning Cross eagerly searched the Sunday papers in vain for further mention of Hilton. Nor was there any news on the radio. Maybe things would quiet down for awhile? But he knew that the Party and the police were still hunting, probing, observing. Dread was still with him; he lived in the anticipation of another sudden confrontation that would send him hurtling down the path of blood again…
After breakfast Menti and Hank came with a car and took them to the union hall. Long queues of workers were entering the doors and filing slowly past the dark, shining coffin in which Gil lay with ashen and upturned face. Huge wreaths of flowers were banked about the coffin which was surrounded by Communist militants standing stiffly at attention. Cross was impressed by the soberness of the shabby men and women who had come to pay their tribute to Gil. It’s better than spending their time playing pinball machines, seeing movies or drinking in bars, he admitted musingly to himself.
Eva was sobbing quietly as he led her by the arm to the coffin. Why’s she weeping? he wondered. Was it for grief over Gil? That could hardly be, for she had hated him. Was it because her life had been blasted? Or was it because she was on the verge of freedom? Maybe it was simply because she was overwhelmed…
Cross stood looking at Gil’s cold and tired face which seemed now somewhat shrunken, but still retaining its lines of rigidity of character. There lies a modern man, Cross said
to himself sadly. He lived as reasonlessly as he died…Life, to him, was a game devoid of all significance except that which he put into it. Life was a game and he played it with all of his skill to the bitter end. Cross was convinced that Gil, in an abstract sense, could not have disagreed with the manner in which he had met his death. Gil just experienced a sudden transitional leap in the dialectical materialistic development of life, that’s all…Cross repressed a wry smile as he gently led Eva from the side of the coffin.
After the Party had had its last say over the body of Gil, Gil’s sister, Blanche, a greying woman of forty-odd from the Bronx, deeply religious and sharply color-conscious, took charge and began to make arrangements for the shipment of Gil’s remains for proper religious ceremonies and burial. Cross kept discreetly in the background while Eva and Blanche, who were strained, cold, and distant toward each other, discussed the disposition of Gil’s books, furniture, and other personal belongings.
Blimin accosted Cross cordially at the back of the union hall.
“I’ve been thinking over your analysis of last night,” Blimin said. “With a little discipline, we could do something with you.”
“And?” Cross prompted him to talk.
“Why do you shun us when you understand so much?”
“I’m not shunning anybody,” Cross told him.
“I can see why Gil wanted to train you,” Blimin said. “Why have you changed your mind? You accepted Gil’s offer—”
“I’ve been so busy coping with suspicions that I’ve had no chance to think of anything,” Cross said.
“Lane, is there anything you want?” Blimin asked.
“What do you mean?”
“For a man of your ability, the Party can make exceptions,” Blimin explained. “Or maybe you’ve got what you want already?”
Cross stared. This was the nearest the Party had come to hinting that he had perhaps killed Gil to get Eva! And Blimin had implied that if he would surrender, the Party would consider forgiving him for even that! But that meant giving up Eva…!
The Outsider Page 47
