DIANA TRILLING
47
of a friend and here the national lines, the division in habits of thought
between the two countries, England and America, baldly announce
themselves. Whittaker Chambers was thought to be a liar because he said
that Communists had infiltrated our government. He claimed that he
had been a friend of Alger Hiss; Hiss denied the relationship. If Hiss was
his friend, as Chambers claimed in bringing his charge against him,
Chambers was as guilty as Goronwy of betraying a friend. One never
heard this accusation brought against him.
Yet it is not necessary that we share the British exaltation of
friendship to recognize that Goronwy was indeed treacherous, peculiarly
so, in condemning a friend for conduct in which he had himself engaged.
A
double standard of this sort is not permitted us. Brief and light-minded
as Rees's service to the Soviet Union may have been, it had to be
confessed to before Goronwy was free to denounce others as sternly as
he did.
It is possible that he eventually came to this realization - conscience
demanded it and this scamp and scoundrel, this rogue and roue was never
rid of conscience; it was his guide and torment. Long before the hard
judgment of others could reach him, Goronwy judged and convicted
himself and to refuse to forgive oneself is of course to be forever
damned. Goronwy's conscience never gave him the chance of freedom
from condemnation. His guilt was at last the whole of his identity, his
"character" and his
"I."
