The Last Day Of A Condemned Man Quotes

But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.

The slightest contact with logic makes all false arguments disintegrate.

كنت قادراً على التفكير في كل ما يسرني ، لأني كنتُ حراً

Yok ettikleri insanın bir zekası, hayata güvenen bir aklı, ölüme hazır olmayan bir ruhu olduğunu hiç düşünmemişler midir?

انهم يقولون ان الجنون يطيل العمر

The merciful precepts of Christ will at last suffuse the Code and it will glow with their radiance. Crime will be considered an illness with its own doctors to replace your judges and its hospitals to replace your prisons. Liberty shall be equated with health. Ointments and oil shall be applied to limbs that were once shackled and branded. Infirmities that once were scourged with anger shall now be bathed with love. The cross in place of the gallows: sublime and yet so simple.

Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,--an illness given by the hand of man!

So how do magistrates understand the word civilization? Where do we stand with it? Justice reduced to subterfuge and trickery! The law to machinations! Appalling!

ماذا عراني فصرت بهذه الدرجة من التخاذل والإنهيار؟ إن باب القبر لا يُفتح من الداخل!!

إن الموت يجعلني إنساناً شريراً !!

Sahte siyasi gerçekler ne kadar iğrenç! Bir düşünce, bir hayal, bir kavramdan dolayı giyotin adı verilen o korkunç gerçeklik!

And that is how a self-seeking hotchpotch distorts and debases the very finest social schemes. It is the black vein in white marble; it gets everywhere, appears under your chisel at any moment without warning. Your statue has to be redone.

وحاولت نسيان الحاضر في الماضي، وبينما كنت أحلم، قفزت ذكريات طفولتي وصباي وشبابي الى ذهني إحداهما إثر الأخرى، رقيقة وادعة ضاحكة كجزر من الأزهار في خليج الآثام والشرور والأفكار المضطربة المائجة في رأسي

Puesto que no hay remedio, tengamos valor con la muerte. Abracemos esta horrible idea con pecho firme; considerémosla cara a cara. Pidámosle cuenta de lo que es; sepamos qué quiere de nosotros; volvámosla en todos sentidos; descifremos el enigma y miremos de antemano en el sepulcro.

Maintenant je suis captif. Mon corps est aux fers dans un cachot, mon esprit est en prison dans une idee. Une horrible, une sanglante, une implacable idee! Je n'ai plus qu'une pense, qu'une conviction, qu'une certitude: condamne a mort!

Kovacs to a female believer in New Revelation: "..I’m calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband’s angle, he’s a man, he’s got everything to gain from this crapshit. But you? You’ve thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You’ll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it’s soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you’ll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we’ve won for ourselves to come back and try again. You’ll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you’ll condemn her to the same fucking thing

Alas! What does death do with our soul? What nature does it give it? What does it take, and what does it leave with it? Where does it put it? Will it sometimes lend it eyes of flesh with which to look down upon the earth and weep?

They say that it is, nothing, that one does not suffer, that it is an easy end; that death in this why is very much simplified. Ah! then, what do they call they call this agony of six weeks, this summing up in one day? What then is the anguish of this irreparable day, which is passing so slowly and yet so fast? What is this ladder of tortures which terminates in the scaffold?

Ah ! Acaba güneş batmadan öleceğim doğru mu? Gerçekten mi? Bu ben miyim? Dışarıdan kulağıma gelen bu çığlıklar, rıhtımda koşuşan şu sevinçli insan kalabalığı, kışlalarında hazırlanan şu jandarmalar, şu siyah giysili rahip, şu kırmızı elbise giymiş adam, bütün bunların hepsi benim için hazırlanıyor! Ölecek olan benim için ! Şu anda burada duran, yaşayan, hareket eden, nefes alıp veren, bütün masalara benzeyen bu masanın önünde oturan ve şu anda başka bir yerde olabilecek ben; dokunan ben, hisseden ben, buruşuk giysili ben!

ای آقایانی که در قلب مجلس نشسته اید، ای ذوات محترمی که در طرفین آن جا گرفته اید، بدانید و آگاه باشد که اکثریت قریب به اتفاق ملت رنج می کشد. شما هر نامی که به حکومت بدهید، اعم از جمهوری یا مشروطه یا حکومت مطلقه مختارید ولی بدانید که اصل این است که ملت رنج می کشد. و جز این هیچ موضوعی مطرح نیست

The social edifice of the past rests on three columns,—the priest, the king, and the hangman.

ان الجلادين قوم في غايه اللطف و الظرف

In tempo di rivoluzione, fate attenzione alla prima testa che cade. Essa fa venire l'appetito al popolo.

La porta della tomba non si apre dall'interno.

A council of Brahmins would be beautiful taking up the cause of the outcast.

If you don't believe in the solidity of iron bars, how dare you have menageries?

To take revenge is of the individual, to punish is of God.

What is physical pain compared to moral pain!

Crime will be regarded as a disease, and this disease will have its doctors who will replace your judges, its hospitals which will replace your prisons.

¡Cuantós han muerto habiendo hecho planes para una larga vida!

bütün insanlar günü belirsiz bir ölüme mahkûmdurlar,

And it is from his heart that he adheres to the wishes and the efforts of the generous men of every nation, who for several years have worked to overthrow the gallows, the only tree which is not uprooted by the Revolution.

Oh ! qu'on m'aille donc, au lieu de cela, chercher quelque jeune vicaire, quelque vieux curé, au hasard, dans la première paroisse venue, qu'on le prenne au coin de son feu, lisant son livre et ne s'attendant à rien, et qu'on lui dise : – Il y a un homme qui va mourir, et il faut que ce soit vous qui le consoliez. Il faut que vous soyez là quand on lui liera les mains, là quand on lui coupera les cheveux; que vous montiez dans sa charrette avec votre crucifix pour lui cacher le bourreau; que vous soyez cahoté avec lui par le pavé jusqu'à la Grève : que vous traversiez avec lui l'horrible foule buveuse de sang; que vous l'embrassiez au pied de l'échafaud, et que vous restiez jusqu'à ce que la tête soit ici et le corps là. Alors, qu'on me l'amène, tout palpitant, tout frissonnant de la tête aux pieds; qu'on me jette entre ses bras, à ses genoux; et il pleurera, et nous pleurerons, et il sera éloquent, et je serais consolé, et mon cœur se dégonflera dans le sien, et il prendra mon âme, et je prendrais son Dieu.

Later, when we no longer there, we find those streets are very dear to us, we miss the roofs, Windows, and doors, that the walls are essential to us, that trees are beloved, that every day we did enter those houses we never entered, and we have left something of our affections, our life and heart on those paving stones.

ويجب علينا أن نقول كذلك في صراحة، أنه إذا قورنت كل المشانق في أوقات الأزمات السياسية، فإن المشنقة السياسية تكون أبشعها وأكثرها شؤماً وأوفرها سُمَّاً وأجدرها بالإزالة على الإطلاق. إن هذا الضرب من المقصلة تنبتُ جذوره في الشارع، ويترعرعُ في وقتٍ وجيزٍ لينتشر في الأرض. ففي وقت الثورة، خذوا حذركم لأولِ رأسٍ يهوي، لأنه يفتح شهية الشعب.

No, I’m calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband’s angle, he’s a man, he’s got everything to gain from this crabshit. But you? You’ve thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You’ll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it’s soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you’ll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we’ve won for ourselves to come back and try again. You’ll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you’ll condemn her to the same fucking thing.

Warum nicht zum Tode verurteilt? Ich erinnere mich an ein Buch, in dem ich die eine zutreffende Stelle las: „Die Menschen sind alle zum Tode verurteilt, nur mit unbestimmten Fristen!“ Inwiefern hat sich also meine Lage geändert? Seit der Stunde, in der mein Urteil verkündet wurde, sind schon manche gestorben, obwohl sie auf ein langes Leben hofften! Viele sind mir vorausgegangen, die jung, frei und gesund darauf rechneten, sie würden am bestimmten Tage meinen Kopf auf dem Grèveplatz fallen sehen. Viele, heute freudig atmend, werden mir noch im Tode vorangehn!

But say   That Death be not one stroak, as I suppos'd,   Bereaving sense, but endless miserie   From this day onward, which I feel begun   Both in me, and without me, and so last   To perpetuitie; Ay me, that fear   Comes thundring back with dreadful revolution   On my defensless head; both Death and I   Am found Eternal, and incorporate both,   Nor I on my part single, in mee all   Posteritie stands curst: Fair Patrimonie   That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able   To waste it all my self, and leave ye none!   So disinherited how would ye bless   Me now your Curse! Ah, why should all mankind   For one mans fault thus guiltless be condemn'd,   If guiltless? But

To celebrate his victories Pompey summoned a meeting of the Senate to vote his father-in-law a further twenty days of public supplication, whereupon a scene ensued that I have never forgotten. One after another the senators rose to praise Caesar, Cicero dutifully among them, until at last there was no one left for Pompey to call except Cato. “Gentlemen,” said Cato, “yet again you have all taken leave of your senses. By Caesar’s own account he has slaughtered four hundred thousand men, women and children—people with whom we had no quarrel, with whom we were not at war, in a campaign not authorised by a vote either of this Senate or of the Roman people. I wish to lay two counter-proposals for you to consider: first, that far from holding celebrations, we should sacrifice to the gods that they do not turn their wrath for Caesar’s folly and madness upon Rome and the army; and second, that Caesar, having shown himself a war criminal, should be handed over to the tribes of Germany for them to determine his fate.” The shouts of rage that greeted this speech were like howls of pain: “Traitor!” “Gaul-lover!” “German!” Several senators jumped up and started shoving Cato this way and that, causing him to stumble backwards. But he was a strong and wiry man. He regained his balance and stood his ground, glaring at them like an eagle. A motion was proposed that he be taken directly by the lictors to the Carcer and imprisoned until such time as he apologised. Pompey, however, was too shrewd to permit his martyrdom. “Cato by his words has done himself more harm than any punishment we can inflict,” he declared. “Let him go free. It does not matter. He will stand forever condemned in the eyes of the Roman people for such treacherous sentiments.” I too felt that Cato had done himself great damage

ويغلب على ظننا في بعض الأحيان، أن الذين يدافعون عن عقوبة الإعدام لم يفكروا فيها فيحسنوا التفكير. ولكن ضعوا إذن بعض الجرائم في الميزان، فهذا القانون العنيف يخوِّل للمجتمع الحق في أن يسلب من الإنسان شيئا لم يمنحه إياه، وهذه العقوبة إنما هي أكثر العقوبات التي لا يمكن إصلاح نتائجها، فهي أشدها استعصاءً على الإصلاح! ذلك أن أمامكم أمرين لا ثالث لهما: فإما أن يكون الرجل الذي تقضون على حياته لا أسرة له ولا أهل ولا روابط في هذا العالم، وفي هذه الحالة لا يكون قد تلقى تربية أو تعليماً أو عناية ما، بنفسه أو بقلبه..فبأي حقٍ إذن تقتلون هذا اليتيم البائس؟! أتعاقبونه لأنه كان يزحف في طفولته على أرضٍ لا سند له فيها ولا مرشد ولا معين؟! إنكم تعاقبونه إذن على العزلة ابتي تركتموه يهيم فيها على وجهه، وتجعلون من مصيبته هذه جريمة، وهو الذي لم يعلمه أحد ماذا كان عليه أن يفعل! إنه رجلٌ جاهل! والخطأ ليس خطأه، ولكنه خطأ القدر..إنكم تعاقبون بريئاً! وإما أن هذا الرجل ذو أسرة، فهل تحسبون عندئذٍ أن الضربة التي تقطعون بها رقبته لا تصيب إلا إياه؟! وأن أباه وأمه وأولاده، لن يقطروا دماً كذلك؟! كلا! فأنتم بقتله إنما تقطعون رقبات أسرة بأسرها. فأنتم هنا كذلك تعاقبون الأبرياء. إن عقوبة الإعدام عقوبةٌ شاذةٌ عمياء، على أي وجهٍ نُقلِّبها، نجدها تصيب البريء!  فاسجنوا هذا الرجل! هذا المذنب الذي له أسرة، فسوف يستطيع وهو في سجنه أن يتابع العمل من أجل ذويه، إذ كيف يكون في وسعه أن يعولهم ويجعلهم يعيشون وهو راقدٌ في قاع قبره؟! تُرى هل تفكرون دون أن تأخذكم الرجفة فيما سيؤول إليه أمر هؤلاء الأولاد الصغار والبنات الصغيرات الذين ينتزعون منهم والدهم؟! أعني، لقمة العيش! أم هل تعولون على هذه الأسرة لتزودوا بها الليمان بعد خمسة عشر عاماً؟! آه ! يا للأبرياء المساكين!  عندما يصدر حكمٌ بالإعدام على عبدٍ رقيق في المستعمرات، فإنهم يدفعون لصاحبه ومالكه تعويضا مقداره ألف فرنك! فماذا أيها السادة؟! إنكم تعوضون خسارة السيد ولا تعوضون الأسرة شيئاً؟! وهنا أيضاً بالله عليكم، ألا تنتزعون رجلاً من بسن ذويه أصحاب الحق فيه؟! أوليس هو ملكاً لوالده وزوجته ولأبناءه إلى حدٍ يبلغ من القداسة أكبر كثيراً من درجة ملكية السيد لعبده؟! لقد سبق لنا أيها السادة أن اتهمنا قانونكم هذا بأنه اغتيال، وهانحن أولاء نتهمه الآن بأنه سرقة. 

The word of no informer was doubted [by Tiberius]. Every crime was treated as capital, even the utterance of a few simple words. A poet was charged with having slandered Agamemnon in a tragedy, and a writer of history of having called Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans. The writers were at once put to death and their works destroyed, although they had been read with approval in public some years before in the presence of Augustus himself. Some of those who were consigned to prison were denied not only the consolation of reading, but even the privilege of conversing and talking together. Of those who were cited to plead their causes some opened their veins at home, feeling sure of being condemned and wishing to avoid humiliation, while others drank poison in full view of the senate; yet the wounds of the former were bandaged and they were hurried half-dead, but still quivering, to the prison. Every one of those who were executed was thrown out upon the Stairs of Mourning and dragged to the Tiber with hooks, as many as twenty being so treated in a single day, including women and children. Since ancient usage made it impious to strangle maidens, young girls were first violated by the executioner and then strangled. Those who wished to die were forced to live; for he thought death so light a punishment that when he heard that one of the accused, Carnulus by name, had anticipated his execution, he cried: "Carnulus has given me the slip"; and when he was inspecting the prisons and a man begged for a speedy death, he replied: "I have not yet become your friend.

he was no mountaineer when he decided to climb the Hindu Kush. A few days scrambling on the rocks in Wales, enchantingly chronicled here, were his sole preparation. It was not mountaineering that attracted him; the Alps abound in opportunities for every exertion of that kind. It was the longing, romantic, reasonless, which lies deep in the hearts of most Englishmen, to shun the celebrated spectacles of the tourist and without any concern with science or politics or commerce, simply to set their feet where few civilized feet have trod. An American critic who read the manuscript of this book condemned it as ‘too English’. It is intensely English, despite the fact that most of its action takes place in wildly foreign places and that it is written in an idiomatic, uncalculated manner the very antithesis of ‘Mandarin’ stylishness. It rejoices the heart of fellow Englishmen, and should at least illuminate those who have any curiosity about the odd character of our Kingdom. It exemplifies the essential traditional (some, not I, will say deplorable) amateurism of the English. For more than two hundred years now Englishmen have been wandering about the world for their amusement, suspect everywhere as government agents, to the great embarrassment of our officials. The Scotch endured great hardships in the cause of commerce; the French in the cause of either power or evangelism. The English only have half (and wholly) killed themselves in order to get away from England. Mr Newby is the latest, but, I pray, not the last, of a whimsical tradition. And in his writing he has all the marks of his not entirely absurd antecedents. The understatement, the self-ridicule, the delight in the foreignness of foreigners, the complete denial of any attempt to enlist the sympathies of his readers in the hardships he has capriciously invited; finally in his formal self-effacement in the presence of the specialist (with the essential reserve of unexpressed self-respect) which concludes, almost too abruptly, this beguiling narrative – in all these qualities Mr Newby has delighted the heart of a man whose travelling days are done and who sees, all too often, his countrymen represented abroad by other, new and (dammit) lower types. Dear reader, if you have any softness left for the idiosyncrasies of our rough island race, fall to and enjoy this characteristic artifact. EVELYN

On Mr. Phipps' discovering the place of my concealment, he cocked his gun and aimed at me. I requested him not to shoot and I would give up, upon which he demanded my sword. I delivered it to him, and he brought me to prison. During the time I was pursued, I had many hair breadth escapes, which your time will not permit you to relate. I am here loaded with chains, and willing to suffer the fate that awaits me. I here proceeded to make some inquiries of him after assuring him of the certain death that awaited him, and that concealment would only bring destruction on the innocent as well as guilty, of his own color, if he knew of any extensive or concerted plan. His answer was, I do not. When I questioned him as to the insurrection in North Carolina happening about the same time, he denied any knowledge of it; and when I looked him in the face as though I would search his inmost thoughts, he replied, 'I see sir, you doubt my word; but can you not think the same ideas, and strange appearances about this time in the heaven's might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking.' I now had much conversation with and asked him many questions, having forborne to do so previously, except in the cases noted in parenthesis; but during his statement, I had, unnoticed by him, taken notes as to some particular circumstances, and having the advantage of his statement before me in writing, on the evening of the third day that I had been with him, I began a cross examination, and found his statement corroborated by every circumstance coming within my own knowledge or the confessions of others whom had been either killed or executed, and whom he had not seen nor had any knowledge since 22d of August last, he expressed himself fully satisfied as to the impracticability of his attempt. It has been said he was ignorant and cowardly, and that his object was to murder and rob for the purpose of obtaining money to make his escape. It is notorious, that he was never known to have a dollar in his life; to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. As to his ignorance, he certainly never had the advantages of education, but he can read and write, (it was taught him by his parents,) and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed by few men I have ever seen. As to his being a coward, his reason as given for not resisting Mr. Phipps, shews the decision of his character. When he saw Mr. Phipps present his gun, he said he knew it was impossible for him to escape as the woods were full of men; he therefore thought it was better to surrender, and trust to fortune for his escape. He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably. On other subjects he possesses an uncommon share of intelligence, with a mind capable of attaining any thing; but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. He is below the ordinary stature, though strong and active, having the true negro face, every feature of which is strongly marked. I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him; clothed with rags and covered with chains; yet daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man; I looked on him and my blood curdled in my veins.

Entirely in agreement with Salieri when he rails against God for having given humanity the gift of Mozart's divine music, for the sole purpose of making us look ridiculous and plunging us into despair. Salieri sets himself up as Man's champion against divine injustice. It is the same problem as that of the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov. When Christ returns to earth he says to him: 'We manage humanity for its greatest happiness. It has paid for this with its mediocrity. Don't come disturbing this fragile balance with insane promises. ' And he condemns Christ to death once again. Salieri is not mean-spirited: it took pride, not to become jealous of Mozart, but to challenge God and ask: 'Tell it to me plainly, why am I not Mozart?' For God mocked us by throwing Mozart among us in the guise of a vulgar being, who did not even bear the exceptional marks of grace. God is toying with us, and that is unbearable. Mozart must be destroyed. All that challenges God is noble in spirit and superior to gaping, unconditional admiration of His works. We will not have the same problem with Changeux's Neuronal Man, emerging on the horizon like Nietzsche's Last Man, with his cortical and synaptic flatness. Farewell Mozart, farewell Salieri, no more grace, but no more challenges either, such is the solution offered by modern science to the insoluble despair of the difference between men. Signs, signs? Is that all you have to say? People act and people dream, they speak or they don't - none of that is unreal. Shut up and watch. See the philosophical beauty of these closing years of the century, the stars in the sky falling lower as the fateful date approaches, and the interactive horizon of couples in love - all this is beyond doubt, and it moves me to tears . . . The age, the coming age is like a metropolis deserted by its population, cut off from its sources of energy. Are you going to say that, are you going to go on with these twilight rantings? Every century throws the reality principle into question as it closes, but it's over today, finished, done. Everybody works these days. Narrative and moral passions, the philosophical animal spirits, are literally blocking the electronic animal spirits, a thousand times more lively and insignificant. Videos and advertisements, credits, news reports and sports flashes, Dallas, that's television, all that transfers easily, with the minimum of energy, on ephemeral film. But pure television, like pure painting or pure speed, is hard to bear.

Your mother will die some day, and you and I will have to die some day, too. Yet My God has never died. Perhaps you haven’t heard clearly the story that tells how He goes on living for ever and ever. In appearance only did He die. But three days after He had died He came to life again and with great pomp He rose up to heaven.” “How often?” the chief asked in a dry tone. Astonished at this unexpected question, the monk answered, “Why . . . why . . . eh . . . once only, quite naturally once only.” “Once only? And has he, your great god, ever returned to earth?” “No, of course not,” Padre Balmojado answered, his voice burdened with irritation. “He has not returned yet, but He has promised mankind that He will return to earth in His own good time, so as to judge and to . . .” “. . . and to condemn poor mankind,” the chief finished the sentence. “Yes, and to condemn!” the monk said in a loud and threatening tone. Confronted with such inhuman stubbornness he lost control of himself. Louder still he continued: “Yes, to judge and to condemn all those who deny Him and refuse to believe in Him, and who criticize His sacred words, and who ignore Him, and who maliciously refuse to accept the true and only God even if He is brought to them with brotherly love and a heart overflowing with compassion for the poor ignorant brethren living in sin and utter darkness, and who can obtain salvation for nothing more than having belief in Him and having the true faith.” Not in the least was the chieftain affected by this sudden outburst of the monk, who had been thrown off routine by these true sons of America who had learned to think long and carefully before speaking. The chieftain remained very calm and serene. With a quiet, soft voice he said: “Here, my holy white father, is what our god had put into our hearts and souls, and it will be the last word I have to say to you before we return to our beautiful and tranquil tierra: Our god dies every evening for us who are his children. He dies every evening to bring us cool winds and freshness of nature, to bring us peace and quiet for the night so that we may rest well, man and animal. Our god dies every evening in a deep golden glory, not insulted, not spat upon, not spattered with stinking mud. He dies beautifully and glori¬ously, as every real god will die. Yet he does not die forever. In the morning he returns to life, refreshed and more beautiful than ever, his body still trailing the veils and wrappings of the dead. But soon his golden spears dart across the blue firmament as a sign that he is ready to fight the gods of darkness who threaten the peoples on earth. And before you have time to realize what happens, there he stands before wondering human eyes, and there he stays, great, mighty, powerful, golden, and in ever-growing beauty, dominating the universe. “He, our god, is a spendthrift in light, warmth, beauty, and fertility, enriching the flowers with perfumes and colors, teaching the birds to sing, filling the corn with strength and health, playing with the clouds in an ocean of gold and blue. As my beloved mother does, so does he give and give and never cease giving; never does he ask for prayers, not expect¬ing adoration or worship, not commanding obedience or faith, and never, never condemning anybody or thing on earth. And when evening comes, again he passes away in beauty and glory, a smile all over his face, and with his last glimmer blesses his Indian children. Again the next morning he is the eternal giver; he is the eternally young, the eternally beautiful, the eternally new-born, the ever and ever returning great and golden god of the Indians. “And this is what our god has put into our hearts and souls and what I am bound to tell you, holy white father: ‘Do not, not ever, beloved Indian sons of these your beautiful lands, give away your own great god for any other god.’ ” ("Conversion Of Some Indians")

Why do I bring this up? How did I wind up interested in the work of this English writer who spent his last days here in Paris, was buried without any friends to attend the funeral, and whose only crime was to have been the lover of a man? Would that this were also my condemnation, because I have been in the beds of famous men and their wives, all in the insatiable pursuit of pleasure. No one ever accused me, of course, because then they would be my witnesses.

MARCH 16 Ordeal of Shame In a memoir of the years before World War II, Pierre Van Paassen tells of an act of humiliation by Nazi storm troopers who had seized an elderly Jewish rabbi and dragged him to headquarters. In the far end of the same room, two colleagues were beating another Jew to death. They stripped the rabbi naked and commanded that he preach the sermon he had prepared for the coming Sabbath in the synagogue. The rabbi asked if he could wear his yarmulke, and the Nazis, grinning, agreed. It added to the joke. The trembling rabbi proceeded to deliver in a raspy voice his sermon on what it means to walk humbly before God, all the while being poked and prodded by the hooting Nazis, and all the while hearing the last cries of his neighbor at the end of the room. When I read the Gospel accounts of the imprisonment, torture, and execution of Jesus, I think of that naked rabbi standing humiliated in a police station. I still cannot fathom the indignity, the shame endured by God’s Son on earth, stripped naked, flogged, spat on, struck in the face, garlanded with thorns. Jewish leaders as well as Romans intended the mockery to parody the crime for which the victim had been condemned. Messiah, huh? Great, let’s hear a prophecy.Wham. Who hit you, huh? Thunk. C’mon, tell us, spit it out, Mr. Prophet. For a Messiah, you don’t know much, do you? It went like that all day long, from the bullying game of Blind Man’s Bluff in the high priest’s courtyard, to the professional thuggery of Pilate’s and Herod’s guards, to the catcalls of spectators up the long road to Calvary, and finally to the cross itself where Jesus heard a stream of taunts. I have marveled at, and sometimes openly questioned, the self-restraint God has shown throughout history, allowing the Genghis Khans and the Hitlers and the Stalins to have their way. But nothing—nothing—compares to the self-restraint shown that dark Friday in Jerusalem. With every lash of the whip, every fibrous crunch of fist against flesh, Jesus must have mentally replayed the temptation in the wilderness and in Gethsemane. Legions of angels awaited his command. One word, and the ordeal would end. The Jesus I Never Knew(199 - 200)

I really have no experience,” he began. “No one has any experience,” said the other, “of the Battle of Armageddon.” “But I am really unfit—” “You are willing, that is enough,” said the unknown. “Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.” “I do,” said the other—“martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.” Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the crimson light of evening, in his shabby black hat and shabby, lawless cloak, he came out a member of the New Detective Corps for the frustration of the great conspiracy. Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (who was professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair and beard, bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite summer suit of light blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short, became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory had first encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he finally left the police premises his friend provided him with a small blue card, on which was written, “The Last Crusade,” and a number, the sign of his official authority. He put this carefully in his upper waistcoat pocket, lit a cigarette, and went forth to track and fight the enemy in all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure ultimately led him we have already seen. At about half-past one on a February night he found himself steaming in a small tug up the silent Thames, armed with swordstick and revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the Central Council of Anarchists.

We'd kissed before, but those kisses weren't like this one. Nothing had ever been like this one. He kissed me like a man who knew he'd been condemned to die and had chosen me in lieu of his last meal.

The bookseller looked at me and said that he knew for certain of more than one novelist capable of recommending his own books to a man on the verge of death. Then he said that we were talking about desperate readers. I’m hardly qualified to judge, he said, but if I don’t, no one will. What book would you give to a condemned man? he asked me. I don’t know, I said. I don’t know either, said the bookseller, and I think it’s terrible. What books do desperate men read? What books do they like? How do you imagine the reading room of a condemned man? he asked. I have no idea, I said. You’re young, I’m not surprised, he said. And then: it’s like Antarctica. Not like the North Pole, but like Antarctica. I was reminded of the last days of Arthur Gordon Pym, but I decided not to say anything. Let’s see, said the bookseller, who would have the audacity to drop this novel on the lap of a man sentenced to death? He picked up a book that had done fairly well and then he tossed it on a pile. I paid him and left. When I turned to leave, the bookseller might have laughed or sobbed. As I stepped out I heard him say: What kind of arrogant bastard would dare to do such a thing? And then he said something else, but I couldn’t hear what it was.

We’d kissed before, but those kisses weren’t like this one. Nothing had ever been like this one. He kissed me like a man who knew he’d been condemned to die and had chosen me in lieu of his last meal.

Nihilism, intimately involved with a frustrated religious movement, thus culminates in terrorism. In the universe of total negation, these young disciples try, with bombs, and revolvers and also with the courage with which they walk to the gallows, to escape from contradiction and to create the values they lack. Until their time, men died for what they knew, or for what they thought they knew. From their time on, it became the rather more difficult habit to sacrifice oneself for something about which one knew nothing, except that it was necessary to die so that it might exist. Until then, those who had to die put themselves in the hand of God in defiance of the justice of man. But on reading the declarations of the condemned victims of that period, we are amazed to see that all, without exception, entrusted themselves, in defiance of their judges, to the justice of other men who were not yet born. These men of the future remained, in the absence of supreme values, their last recourse. The future is the only transcendental value for men without God. The terrorists no doubt wanted first of all to destroy—to make absolutism totter under the shock of exploding bombs. But by their death, at any rate, they aimed at re-creating a community founded on love and justice, and thus to resume a mission that the Church had betrayed. The terrorists’ real mission is to create a Church from whence will one day spring the new God. But is that all? If their voluntary assumption of guilt and death gave rise to nothing but the promise of a value still to come, the history of the world today would justify us in saying, for the moment at any rate, that they have died in vain and that they never have ceased to be nihilists. A value to come is, moreover, a contradiction in terms, since it can neither explain an action nor furnish a principle of choice as long as it has not been formulated.

Alas, the day comes of the most contemptible man who can no longer condemn himself.... Then the earth will have grown small, and upon it shall hop the Last Man who makes all things small; his kind is inexterminable, like the ground flea. The last man lives longest.