A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [264]
Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff imprinted something on me that is with me to this day. The Russian tsar has sent Strogoff on a secret mission to take a fateful message to the beleaguered Russian forces in remotest Siberia. On the way he has to cross regions that are under Tartar control. Michael Strogoff is captured by Tartar guards and taken to their leader, the Great Khan, who orders his eyes to be put out by being touched with a white-hot sword, so that he will be unable to continue with his mission to Siberia. Strogoff has memorized the fateful message, but how can he slip through the Tartar ranks and reach Siberia if he cannot see? Even after the glowing iron touches his eyes, the faithful messenger continues to grope his way blindly eastward, until at a crucial moment in the plot it is revealed to the reader that he has not lost his sight after all: the white-hot sword as it approached his eyes was cooled by his tears! Because at the crucial moment Michael Strogoff thought of his beloved family whom he would never see again, and the thought filled his eyes with tears, which cooled the blade and saved his sight as well as his fateful mission, which is crowned with success and leads to the victory of his country over all its foes.
So it was Strogoff's tears that saved him and the whole of Russia. But where I lived, men were not allowed to shed tears! Tears were shameful! Only women and children were permitted to weep. Even when I was five, I was ashamed of crying, and at the age of eight or nine I learned to suppress it so as to be admitted to the ranks of men. That is why I was so astonished on the night of November 29 when my left hand in the dark encountered my father's wet cheek. That is why I never talked about it, either to Father himself or to any other living soul. And now here was Michael Strogoff, a flawless hero, a man of iron who could endure any hardship or torture, and yet when he suddenly thinks of love, he shows no restraint: he weeps. Michael Strogoff does not weep from fear, or from pain, but because of the intensity of his feelings.
Moreover, Michael Strogoff's crying does not demote him to the rank of a miserable wretch or a woman or a wreck of a man; it is acceptable both to the author, Jules Verne, and to the reader. And as if it were not enough that it is suddenly acceptable for a man to weep, both he and the whole of Russia are saved by his tears. And so this manliest of men defeats all his foes thanks to his "feminine side," which rose up from the depths of his soul at the crucial moment, without impairing or weakening his "masculine side" (as they brainwashed us to say in those days): on the contrary, it complemented it and made peace with it. So perhaps there was an honorable way out of the choice that tormented me in those days, the choice between emotion and manliness? (A dozen years later, Hannah in My Michael would also be fascinated by the character of Michael Strogoff.)
And then there was Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, who detested exploitative regimes and the oppression of nations and individuals by heartless bullies and selfish powers. He had a hatred for the arrogant condescension of the northwestern countries that is reminiscent of Edward Said, if not Franz Fanon, so he decided to dissociate himself from all of it and to create a little utopia under the ocean.
This apparently aroused in me, among other things, a throb of Zionist responsiveness. The world