From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [333]
“But hell,” Angelo said, “that would be crazy.”
“Sure,” the big man grinned, “but thats just what your Christian martyrs did, citizen.”
“Yeah,” Angelo said thoughtfully, “thats right. But times was differnt then,” he said.
“You mean the people then didnt want to live as bad as the people do now.”
“Yeah. I guess thats it. Sure thats it. We got more to live for now.”
“Movies,” the big man said without smiling, gently, almost lovingly. “Automobiles. Trains, buses, airplanes, niteclubs, bars; sports, educations, businesses. Radios,” the big man said gently.
“Yeah,” Angelo said. “All that. It wont be long till we got television. They dint have none of that stuff.”
“Would you say a man in a Nazi concentration camp had the right to commit suicide?”
“Hell yes.”
“Then why not a man in an American corporation?”
“But thas differnt. He aint bein tortured.”
“You think not? And why not a man in the American Army? Why not a man in the Stockade? Why not any man anywhere, anytime, if he is being tortured?
“Everybody talks about freedom, citizens,” the big man said gently, seeming to draw upon that very sure source of personal knowldege again, “but they dont really want it. Half of them wants it but the other half dont. What they really want is to maintain an illusion of freedom in front of their wives and business associates. Its a satisfactory compromise, and as long as they can have that they can get along without the other which is more expensive. The only trouble is, every man who declares himself free to his friends has to make a slave out of his wife and employees to keep up the illusion and prove it; the wife to be free in front of her bridgeclub has to command her Help, Husband, and Heirs. It resolves itself into a battle; whoever wins, the other one loses. For every general in this world there have to be 6,000 privates.
“Thats why,” he smiled at them, “I wouldnt stop any man from committing suicide. If he came up and asked to borrow my gun, I’d give it to him. Because he is either serious or else trying to maintain that illusion of freedom. If he was serious I’d want him to have it; if he was play-acting I’d want to call him.”
“Thats one way to look at it,” Prew said, somehow carried along into agreement in spite of himself, carried by those long-range-vision eyes and that absolute-tender voice.
“In our world, citizens,” the big man said gently, “theres only one way a man can have freedom, and that is to die for it, and after he’s died for it it dont do him any good. Thats the whole problem, citizens. In a nutshell.”
“This is Jack Malloy,” Angelo said proudly, as if introducing his personal friend the Nizam of Hyderabad, the richest man in the world. “Wait’ll you hear some of the real conversations we have in here.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Prew said, feeling tongue-tied and shy. Looking at those soft vague unabashed-dreamer’s eyes he could see why an arch-cynic like Blues Berry could make such a fatuous remark about The Malloy’s big-baby heart.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Jack Malloy said warmly, sticking out a paw like a ham. “I want to shake your hand, citizen. Out of all the drafthorses in this stable, you’re the only one who ever listened to what I told them to do and did it, exactly,” he said raising his voice.
Without turning either his trunk or his head, he seemed suddenly to be staring behind him at the rest of Number Two sprawled out talking on the chairless floor. He was not looking at them but they all lowered their eyes and inspected their cigarets, the conversations seemed to stop dead in the air.
Jack Malloy ruthlessly let the silence ring on for almost a full minute. Then he turned back, or seemed to turn back, because he was still looking at Prew, and winked down at Prew, a quick deliberate but absolutely impersonal wink that was as if he did not even see Prew at all but was only fulfilling a social ritual like a host who gives a big dinner party for a prospective customer so he can sell him.
“If I had twelve men;” he said loudly, “an even dozen, citizen; who would do like you did, I could have Father Thompson and Fa