CHAPTER XXXII
With Helen today to hear
Miller speaking at Tower Hill, during the dinner hour. A big crowd. He spoke
well – the right mixture of arguments, jokes, emotional appeal. The theme, peace. Peace everywhere or no peace at all. International peace not
achievable unless a translation into policy of inter-individual relations. Militarists at home, in factory, and office,
towards inferiors and rivals, cannot logically expect governments which
represent them to behave as pacifists.
Hypocrisy and stupidity of those who advocate peace between states,
while conducting private wars in business or the family. Meanwhile, there was much heckling by
communists in the crowd. How can
anything be achieved without revolution?
Without liquidating the individuals and classes
standing in the way of social progress?
And so on. Answer (always with
extraordinary good humour and wit): means determine ends. Violence and coercion produce a
post-revolutionary society, not communistic but (like the Russian)
hierarchical, ruled by an oligarchy using secret police methods. And all the rest.
After
about a quarter of an hour, an angry young heckler climbed on to the little
wall, where Miller was standing, and threatened to knock him off if he didn't stop. 'Come on then, Archibald.' The crowd laughed; the young man grew still
angrier, advanced, clenched, squared up. 'Get down, you old bastard, or else …' Miller
stood quite still, smiling, hands by side, saying, All right; he had no
objection to being knocked off. The
attacker made sparring movements, brought a fist to
within an inch of Miller's nose. The old
man didn't budge, showed no sign of fear or anger. The other drew back the hand, but instead of
bringing it into Miller's face, hit him on the chest. Pretty hard. Miller staggered, lost his balance and fell
off the wall into the crowd. Apologized
to the people he'd fallen on, laughed, got up again on to the wall. Repetition of the
performance. Again the young man
threatened the face, but again, when Miller didn't lift his hands, or show
either fear or anger, hit him on the chest.
Miller went down and again climbed up.
Got another blow. Came up once more. This time the man screwed himself up to
hitting the face, but only with the flat of his hand. Miller straightened his head and went on
smiling. 'Three shots a penny,
Archibald.' The man let out at the body
and knocked him off the wall. Up
again. Miller looked at his watch. 'Another ten minutes before
you need go back to work, Archibald.
Come on.' But this time the man
could only bring himself to shake his fist and call Miller a bloodsucking old
reactionary. Then turned and walked off
along the wall, pursued by derisive laughter, jokes and whistlings from the
crowd. Miller went on with his speech.
Helen's
reaction was curious. Distress at the spectacle of the young
man's brutality towards the old.
But at the same time anger with Miller for allowing himself
to be knocked about without resistance. The reason for this anger?
Obscure; but I think she resented Miller's success. Resented the fact that the
young man had been reduced, psychologically, to impotence. Resented the demonstration
that there was an alternative to terrorism and a non-violent means of combating
it. 'It's only a trick,' she
said. Not a very easy trick, I insisted;
and that I certainly couldn't perform it.
'Anyone could learn it, if he tried.'
'Possibly; wouldn't it be a good thing if we all tried?' 'No, I think it's stupid.' Why?
She found it hard to answer.
'Because it's unnatural,' was the reason she managed to formulate at
last – and proceeded to develop it in terms of a kind of egalitarian
philosophy. 'I want to be like other
people. To have the
same feelings and interests. I
don't want to make myself different. Just an ordinary person; not somebody who's proud of having learnt
a difficult trick. Like that old Miller of yours.' I pointed out that we'd all learned such
difficult tricks as driving cars, working in offices, reading and writing, crossing
the street. Why shouldn't we all learn
this other difficult trick? A trick, potentially, so much more useful. If all were to learn it, then one could
afford to be like other people, one could share all their feelings in safety,
with the certainty that one would be sharing something good, not bad. But Helen wasn't to be persuaded. And when I suggested that we should join the
old man for a late lunch, she refused.
Said she didn't want to know him.
That the young man had been quite right; Miller was a reactionary. Disguising himself in a
shroud of talk about economic justice; but underneath just a tory agent. His insistence that changes in social
organization weren't enough, but that they must be accompanied by, must spring
from a change in personal relations – what was that but a plea for
conservatism? 'I think he's pernicious,'
she said. 'And I think you're
pernicious.' But she consented to have
lunch with me. Which
showed how little stock she set on my powers to shake her convictions! Arguments – I might have lots of good
arguments; to those she was impervious.
But Miller's action had got between the joints of her armour. He acted his doctrine, didn't rest content
with talking it. Her confidence that I
couldn't get between the joints, as he had done, was extremely insulting. The more so as I knew it was justified.
Perseverance, courage, endurance. All, fruits of love. Love goodness enough, and indifference and
slackness are inconceivable. Courage
comes as to the mother defending her child; and at the same time there is no
fear of the opponent, who is loved, whatever he may do, because of the
potentialities for goodness in him. As
for pain, fatigue, disapproval – they are borne cheerfully, because they seem
of no consequence by comparison with the goodness loved and pursued. Enormous gulf separating me from this
state! The fact that Helen was not
afraid of my perniciousness (as being only theoretical), while dreading
Miller's (because his life was the same as his argument), was a painful
reminded of the existence of this gulf.