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PARTISAN REVIEW
weaker until I could not even gasp out an audible semblance of the
monosyllabic sound that would say 'No' to the false charges which
were beginning to weigh heavily upon my shoulders. I felt I might
collapse at any moment to the ground. But the husky men at my
elbow would help me up and revive my spirits by a slap on my face
or a kick in my thigh. Such a stroke was welcome to me, for it pro–
vided stimulus to my muscles and saved them from paralysis. My
trousers had become wet and dry several times but neither I myself
nor the interrogator seemed to have noticed the stink. Sometimes a
bowl of cold water would be thrown into my face and the drops
that wet my lips seemed to be the most delicious drink I have ever
tasted in my life-with all respect to your Taiwan beer. Then I
would shake my head. And I continued to shake my head when I
could not wag my tongue. I would not take the pen or pencil which
the men by my side tried to thrust into my hand. You see I was
still stubborn.
"It was, I believe, when I stood thus confusedly facing the
seventh interrogator that I felt I was haunted. I began to see double
--or even triple. I saw not only one ghost; I saw two ghosts." He
crossed himself. I had just swallowed a lump of unmelted ice, so
coldness had reached the pit of my stomach. I set down my glas<!
and was speechless. The Madonna in Chinese dress was now radiant
with a splendor of intellectual beauty which I had not noticed when
I first
k
'Jked at her and the white peonies on the old man's slippers
were shimmering beautifully as the morning lengthened into day.
II
"The new interrogator came in with a lamp," Father Ko
resumed. "He might have been one of the old interrogators, now back
from
his
conference or other official duties. But I did not care who
he was or how he looked. My head was very heavy at that time.
Except that I was still shaking it in defiance, it really served no other
function of a head. I had stopped thinking, and the only sense per–
ceptions I had were the sounds which I somehow knew to be ques–
tions hurled at me but which I had ceaselessly tried to shake off. My
eyes had become very; dim, but why should that have troubled me?
So long as I could continue to shake my head, so long as I could
