THE FEAR OF INNOCENCE
783
damnation. Did you ever hear of the theory of Uneven Develop–
ment?"
"That's some Trotskyite theory, isn't
(pause)
it?" He said it in
a tone of intended rebuff, but he had no faith in it; he was just trying
it on for size.
"Can't you see, it's just your innocence that makes you a push–
over for propaganda, however sleazy and unsubtle, against innocence.
You can't make a career of innocently hating innocence, nor a sub–
ject matter of its callow denial. And one thing's sure, you amateur
Machiavel, you can't blink
my
sins out of existence, whatever you
do with your own."
It must be clear to you by now (I did not intend to conceal it)
what motivated my feeling and my speech: the need to make the
record once more. For there I had been granted what death had
seemed to deny, the possibility of saying what I could not leave off
wanting to say; once more, once more to explain, and this time per–
haps what had been wounded would be healed; this once at least
words might eventuate in understanding.
It was to Hal I spoke (how, precisely, had I lied to that old
woman when I told her that I believed in his ghost? But that was
the riddle of my pilgrimage) on that unforeseen deck, as I had spoken
on streets I could scarcely remember through nights whose motives
had become as alien to me as history. Dan was no Hal, after all,
but there seemed reasons to subpoena him for the role, to externalize
my long lonely debate as chance allowed, in whispers and without
lights. In the end, he made quite an acceptable ghost.
"Esoteric crap," he said, "I won't buy it."
"You're trying," I told him, "but you just don't have it in you,
not real offense, not the arrogance of Hal; and maybe it'll save you,
just that lack, for all your posturing; twist the arm of your insolence
till you yell, 'Save me!' No, not that ultimate, lucid, unconvertible
arrogance, not the arrogance of the J ew- "
That hurt him, and I must after all have intended it. Having
chosen his way of somewhat chic dissent, Dan fell inevitably among
Jews and they (any Jew sensed it in a moment) offended him; not
at any level where reason could emend or learned tolerance temper
the distaste, but at a tribal depth of aversion immune to argument,
almost beyond the grace of confession. His consequent self-distrust
