Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [189]
‘The ruffians!’ said Spandrell sympathetically. But his eyes shone with malicious laughter. The misfortunes of his friends were an unfailing source of amusement to him, and this of Illidge’s was a particularly entertaining disaster.
‘But at least I spoilt the best effect in Webley’s disgusting oration,’ Illidge went on in the same selfcongratulating tone.
‘It might have been slightly more satisfactory if you’d spoilt his face for him.’
Illidge was stung by the note of mockery in Spandrell’s words. ‘Spoiling his face wouldn’t be enough,’ he said with ferocity, scowling as he spoke. ‘The man ought to be exterminated. He’s a public danger, he and his gang of bravoes.’ He broke into profanity.
Spandrell only laughed. ‘It’s easy to yammer,’ he said. ‘Why not do something for a change? A little direct action in Webley’s own style.’
The other shrugged his shoulders apologetically. ‘We’re not well enough organized.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought it needed much organization to knock a man on the head. No, the real trouble is that you’re not courageous enough.’
Illidge blushed. ‘That’s a lie!’
‘Not well enough organized!’ Spandrell went on contemptuously ‘At least you’re modern in your excuses. The great god organization. Even art and love will soon be bowing down like everything else. Why are your verses so bad? Because the poetry industry isn’t well enough organized. And the impotent lover will excuse himself in the same way and assure the indignant lady that, next time, she’ll find his organization perfect. No, no, my dear Illidge, it won’t do, you know; it won’t do.’
‘You’re being very funny, no doubt,’ said Illidge, still pink with anger. ‘But you’re talking rot. You can’t compare poetry and politics. A political party’s a lot of men who’ve got to be disciplined and held together. A poet’s one man.’
‘But so’s a murderer, isn’t he?’ Spandrell’s tone, his smile were still sarcastic. Illidge felt the blood running up again into his face like the warmth of a suddenly flaring inward fire. He hated Spandrell for his power of humiliating him, for making him feel small, a fool and ashamed. He had come in feeling important and heroic, flushed with satisfaction. And now, with a few slow sneering words, Spandrell had turned his selfsatisfaction to an angry shame. There was a silence; they ate their soup without speaking. When his plate was empty, ‘One man,’ said Spandrell meditatively, leaning back in his chair. ‘With all one man’s responsibility. A thousand men have no.) responsibility. That’s why organization’s such a wonderful comfort. A member of a political party feels himself as safe as the member of a church. The party may order civil war, rape, massacre; he does what he’s told cheerfully, because the responsibility isn’t his. It’s the leader’s. And the leader is the rare man, like Webley. The man with courage.’
‘Or cowardice, in his case,’ said Illidge. ‘Webley’s the bourgeois rabbit terrified into ferocity.’
‘Is he?’ asked Spandrell raising his eyebrows derisively. ‘Well, you may be right. But anyhow, he’s rather different from the ordinary rabbit. The ordinary rabbit isn’t scared into ferocity. He’s scared into abject inactivity or abject activity in obedience to somebody else’s orders. Never into activity on his own account, for which he has to take the responsibility. When it’s a question of murder, for example, you don’t find the ordinary rabbits exactly eager, do you? They wait to be organized. The responsibility’s too great for the little individual. He’s scared.’
‘Well, obviously nobody wants to be hanged.’
‘He’d be scared even if there wasn’t any hanging.’
‘You’re not going to trot out the categorical imperative again, are you.?’ It was Illidge’s turn to be sarcastic.
‘It trots itself out. Even in your case. When it came to the point, you’d never dare do anything about Webley, unless you had an organization to relieve you of all responsibility. You simply wouldn’t dare,’ he repeated, with a kind of mocking challenge. He looked at Illidge intently between half-closed eyelids, and through the whole of Illidge