22
PARTISAN REVJ'EW
inventions, with advertisements of which you have filled our news–
papers. How like you! How like you to enslave a people, then show
them advertisements of labor-saving devices! We must say: No! Your
poverty persists in the poisonous fruits of your industries, your instru–
ments of destruction, your bombs and your guns, your rockets and
flame-throwers, your ships that prowl under the ocean and your trains
that fly through the air. And what is the standard of living of which
you boast, the material wealth that you accumulate? To us, they are
the instruments of death, even as the bombers bring death. To our
clearer eyes, your civilization is dying and the agony you now suffer,
the discipline and the dictatorship, the cruelty of your prisons, the
brutality of your cities, the vast cemeteries into which you have con–
verted all that was fertile in your life, all that was humane in culture
and productive in industry-all this prolonged dying is but the final
torment of the initial disease: the degradation of man. We say: No!
Even as slaves, we have more freedom than our masters. Even if we
knew that this was to be the last day, the last hour, of our present
misery, we would still prefer it to your way-we would rathe:r have
our misery than be damned by your blessing! We have chosen between
your life and ours, and our answer is: No! We say: No!"
"No!" cried the crowd.
"No!" cried Satya. "No! No! No!"
And the crowd answered him: "No! No! No!''
He paused during the outcry, and seeing how he had aroused
the people, he let down his arms, and stood empty handed, discarding
the javelin. He wiped the sweat from
his
face, adjusted his cap, which
had nearly slipped from his head, and waited for the demonstration
to subside. When he began speaking again, his voice was lo·wer and
calmer, as if he regretted having played on the people's emotions and
felt he had done them an injury.
"We must observe what the real issues of politics are. They have
to do not only with obtaining freedom, but with discovering freedom
-with discovering what are the bases, in spiritual independence, of
the freedom we would build on earth. Our whole life, had we time
enough, would be a constant choosing and rejecting, a connoisseurship
pursued among truths and falsehoods." He was aware that he had
indulged his fancy, and knew that he must restrain himself. The effect
was pleasing, but the term "connoisseurship" was questionable and
he was surprised that he should, at this moment in
his
life, suddenly
hit upon an esthete's affectation. "But we must make practical choices,
and even the ideal ends that we set for ourselves must have practical
