412
PARTISAN REVIEW
would be broken by the strap.'" The victim is not responsible for
what he cannot prevent.
Despite its massive size , the Harrow operates with great preci–
sion.
'''It
regulates itself automatically so that the needles barely
touch his skin .'" The advantage of this refined contact, hardly more
than a tickle, is obviously the prolongation of the torture. The
wounds are made and deepened only gradually so that the point of
no return , the climactic moment of enlightenment, is postponed as
long as possible . The machine calibrates sensation as delicately as an
expert lover .
The condemned man's body is laid on cotton wool, which is
evidently on a moving belt or roller that turns the body over and
over.
"Meanwhile the raw part that has been written on lies on the cot–
ton wool , which is specially prepared to staunch the bleeding and
so makes all ready for a new deepening of the script. "
The staunching of wounds, usually a therapeutic measure, serves
here not to relieve the victim, but instead to prepare him for a more
refined agony. Like the gag and the delicate regulation of the
machine, the cotton suggests a perverse tenderness toward the body,
an intensity of interest that can only be called erotic .
Another modern convenience of the machine is the electrically
heated basin in which rice pap is offered to the victim after the gag is
removed, when he no longer has the strength to scream. In a final
debasement, the victim laps this babyish food with his tongue, seem–
ing to collaborate in his own annihilation, rather like the "submissive
dog" at the beginning of the story . According to the officer, "'Not one
of them ever misses the chance. '" Like the other details of the
machine's operation, this one has a quality of cosseting or pampering
the body that suggests pleasure; here, of course, it is used to
strengthen the body to experience pain.
These aspects of the torture are perhaps especially frightful
because they bring pleasure and pain into uncomfortably close prox–
imity - or rather because they make us acknowledge this disturbing
connection in our own minds. This is the terrible truth with which
the story confronts us, which makes it both so difficult to read and so
compelling. The story taps in us the fascination with the erotic as–
pect of cruelty, the cruel aspect of Eros.
It
touches that place where
