238
PARTISAN REVIEW
But how could I communicate
all
this
to Intelligence, which
is
interested only in the evidence, and not in the metaphysical aspects
of guilt and innocence, involving the accuser as much as the accused?
"Before we go any further," I said, "I must make clear to you
that I am a liberal. Some people go so far as to call me a socialist,
though I regard myself as being in a state of extreme conflict and
disillusionment in my philosophical and political beliefs. Anyway,
it is against my principles to collaborate with any inquisition directed
aganst the legitimate left, I mean against people who honestly hold
dissident opinions and are not the dupes of sinister organizations."
Intelligence looked at me diffidently, as though to say he did not
understand the relevance of what I was saying.
"Let me put it
this
way," I went on to explain,
"if
Miss Caruso
is really
guilty
of something more than being an obnoxious person
and holding unpopular opinions, if, for example, she were a spy,
then I would have no recourse but to answer your questions. What
is the charge against her?"
"I cannot tell you that," he replied in a tone suggesting that
I might have assumed he could not reveal the secret of his mission.
"Of course," I said, sympathetically, "to expose the nature of
the investigation might actually jeopardize its success. You are only
a cog in this huge machine that
grinds
out justice, and you cannot
take any responsibility for it. You cannot divulge its hidden ways,
much less judge them-perhaps you do not even know them."
From the response of my interrogator, who was beginning to
look impatient and bored, it was clear that he had not the slightest
interest in so abstract a view of what was, after all, probably just a
job to
him.
To make my point, I had to take a different tack.
"What I mean," I went on, "is that I am opposed to arbitrary
committees of three or five or seven, whether they be senators or
congressmen, or merchants, set up to review the lives of other citi–
zens. These committees tend to become instruments of reaction-and,
besides, they are inefficient and not a little comic. On the other hand,
we can perhaps assume that Intelligence is a more responsible and
efficient body.
If
it
has set out to investigate Miss Caruso, for example,
it must have done so on the basis of certain facts that have come to
its attention, and not for political or exhibitionistic reasons. Besides,
Miss Caruso's guilt or innocence is in no way affected by my answer-
