The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre

They pushed us into a big white room and I began to blink because the light hurt my eyes. Then I saw a table and four men behind the table, civilians, looking over the papers. They had bunched another group of prisoners in the back and we had to cross the whole room to join them. There were several I knew and some others who must have been foreigners. The two in front of me were blond with round skulls; they looked alike. I supposed they were French. The smaller one kept hitching up his pants: nerves.

It lasted about three hours; I was dizzy and my head felt empty; but the room was well heated and I found that pleasant enough: for the past twenty-four hours we hadn’t stopped shivering. The guards brought the prisoners up to the table, one after the other. The four men asked each one his name and occupation. Most of the time they didn’t go any further-or they would simply ask a question here and there: “Did you have anything to do with the sabotage of munitions?” Or, “Where you were the morning of the 9th and what were you doing?” They didn’t listen to the answers or at least didn’t seem to. They were quiet for a moment looking straight in front of them, and then began to write. They asked Tom if it were true he was in the International Bridge; tom couldn’t tell them otherwise because of the papers they found in his coat. They didn’t ask Juan anything but they wrote for a long time after he told them his name.

“My brother Jose is the anarchist,” Juan said, “you know he isn’t here any more. I don’t belong to any party; I never had anything to do with politics.”

They didn’t answer. Juan went on, “I haven’t done anything. I don’t want to pay for somebody else.”

His lips trembled. A guard shut him up and took him away. It was my turn.

“Your name is Pablo Ibbieta?”

“Yes.”

The man looked at the papers and asked me, “where is Ramon Gris?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hid him in your house from the 6th to the 19th.”

“No.”

They wrote for a minute and then the guards took me out. In the corridor Tom and Juan were waiting between two guards. We started walking. Tom asked one of the guards, “So?”

“So what?” the guard said.

“Was that the cross-examination or the judgment?”

“Judgment,” the guard said.

“What are they going to do with us?”

The guard answered dryly, “Sentence will be read in your cell.”

As a matter of fact, our cell was one of the hospital cellars. It was terrifically cold there because of the draughts. We shivered all night and it wasn’t much better during the day. I had spent the previous five days in a cell in a monastery, a sort of hole in the wall that must have dated from the middle Ages: since there were a lot of prisoners and not much room, they locked us up anywhere. I didn’t miss my cell; I hadn’t suffered too much from the cold but I Was alone; after a while it gets irritating. In the cellar I had company. Juan hardly ever spoke: he was afraid and he was too young to have anything to say. But Tom was a good talker and he knew Spanish very well.

There was a bench in the cellar and four mats. When they took us back we sat and waited in silence. After a long moment, Tom said, “We’re screwed.”

“I think so too,” I said, “but I don’t think they’ll do anything to the kid.”

“They don’t have a thing against him,” said Tom.

“He’s the brother of a militiaman and that’s all.”

I looked at Juan: he didn’t seem to hear. Tom went on, “You know what they do in Saragossa? They lay the men down on the road and run over them with trucks. A Moroccan deserter told us that. They said it was to save ammunition.”

“It doesn’t save petrol,” I said.

I was annoyed at Tom: he shouldn’t have said that.

“Then there’s officers walking along the road,” he went on, “supervising it all. They stick their hands in their pockets and smoke cigarettes. You think they finish off the guys? Hell no. they Moroccan said he damned near puked the first time.”

“I don’t believe they’ll do that here” I said.

“Unless they’re really short on ammunition.”

The light came in through four air holes and a round opening they had made in the ceiling, on the left, and you could see the sky through it. Through this hole, usually closed by a trap, they unloaded coal into the cellar. Just below the hole there was a big pile of coal dust; it had been used to heat the hospital but since the beginning of the war the patients were evacuated and the coal stayed there, unused; sometimes it even got rained on because they had forgotten to close the trap.

Tom began to shiver. “Good Jesus Christ, I’m cold,” he said. “Here it goes again.”

“He got up and began to do exercises. At each movement his shirt opened on his chest, white and hairy. He lay in his back, raised his legs in the air and bicycled. I saw his great rump trembling. Tom was husky but he had too much fat. I thought how rifle bullets or the sharp points of bayonets would soon be sunk into this mass of tender flesh as in a lump of butter. It wouldn’t have made me feel like that if he’d been thin.

I wasn’t exactly cold, but I couldn’t feel my arms and shoulders any more. Sometimes I had the impression I was missing something and began to look around for my coat and then suddenly remembered they hadn’t given me a coat. It was rather uncomfortable. They took our clothes and gave them to their soldiers, leaving us only our shirt-and those canvas pants that hospital patients wear in the middle of summer. After a while tom got up and sat next to me, breathing heavily.

“Warmer?”

“Good Christ, no. But I’m out of wind.”

Around eight o’clock in the evening a major came in with two falangistas. He had a sheet of paper in his hand. He asked the guard, “What are the names of those three?”

“Stein bock, Ibbieta and Mirbal,” the guard said.

The Major put on his eyeglasses and scanned the list: “Steinbock . . . Stenbock . . . Oh yes . . . You are sentenced to death. You will be shot tomorrow morning.” He went on looking. “The other two as well.”

“That’s not possible,” Juan said. “Not me.”

The major looked at him amazed. “What’s your name?”

“Juan Mirbal,” he said.

“Well, your name is there,” said the major.

“You’re sentenced.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Juan said.

The major shrugged his shoulders and turned to Tom and me.

“You’re Basque?”

“Nobody is Basque.”

He looked annoyed. “They told me there were three Basques. I’m not going to waste my time running after them. Then naturally you don’t want a priest?”

We didn’t even answer.

He said, “A Belgian doctor is coming shortly. He is authorized to spend the night with you.” He made a military salute and left.

“What did I tell you,” tom said, “We get it.”

“Yes,” I said, “It’s a rotten deal for the kid.”

I said that to be decent but I didn’t like the kid. His face was too thin and fear and suffering had disfigured it, twisting all his features. Three days before he had been a smart sort of kid, not too bad; but now he looked like an old fairy and I thought how he’d never be young again, even if they were to let him go. It wouldn’t have been too hard to have a little pity for him but pity disgusts me, or rather it horrifies me. He hadn’t said anything more but he had turned grey; his face and hands were both grey. He sat down again and looked at the ground with rounds eyes. Tom was good hearted; he wanted to take his arm, but the kid tore himself away violently and made a face.

“Let him alone,” I said in a low voice, “you can see he’s going to blubber.”

Tom obeyed regretfully; he would have liked to comfort the kid, it would have passed his time and he wouldn’t have been temped to think about himself. But it annoyed me: I’d never thought about death because I never had any reason to, but now think about it.

Tom began to talk, “Say have you ever knocked any guys off?” he asked me. I didn’t answer. He began explaining to me that he had knocked off six since the beginning of August; he didn’t realize the situation and I could tell he didn’t want to realize it. I hadn’t quit realized it myself, I wondered if it hurt much, it thought of bullets, I imagined their burning hail through my body. All that was beside the real question; but I was calm: we had all night to understand. After a while tom stopped talking and I watched him out of the corner of my eye: I saw he too had turned grey and he looked rotten; I told myself “Now it starts.” It was almost dark, a dim glow filtered through the air holes and the pile of coal and made a big stain beneath the spot of sky; I could already see a star through the hole in the ceiling: the night would be pure and icy.

The door opened and two guards came in, followed by a blond man in a tan uniform. He saluted us. “I am the doctor,” he said. “I have authorization to help you in these trying hours.”

He had an agreeable and distinguished voice. I said, “What do want here?”

“I am at your disposal. I shall do all I can to make your last moments less difficult.”

“What did you come here for? There’s others, the hospital’s full of them.”

“I was sent here,” he answered with a vague look. “Ah! Would you like to smoke?” he added hurriedly, “I have cigarettes and even cigars.”

He offered us English cigarettes and puros, but we refused. I looked him in the eyes and he seemed irritated. I said to him, “you aren’t here on an errand of mercy. Beside, I know you. I saw you with the fascists in the barracks yard the day I was arrested.”

I was going to continue, but something surprising suddenly happened to me; the presence of this doctor no longer interested me. Generally when I’m on somebody I don’t let go. But the desire to talk left me completely; I shrugged and turned my eyes away. A little later I raised my head; he was watching me curiously. The guards were sitting on a mat. Pedro, the tall thin one, was twiddling his thumbs; the other shook his head from time to time to keep from falling asleep.

“Do you want a light?” Pedro suddenly asked the doctor. The other nodded “Yes”: I think he was about as smart as a long, but he surely wasn’t bad.

Looking in his cold blue eyes it seemed to me that his only sin was lack of imagination. Pedro went out and came back with an oil lamp which he set o the corner of the bench. It gave a bad light but it was better than nothing: they had left us in the dark the night before. For a long time I watched the circle of light the lamp made on the ceiling. I was fascinated. The suddenly I woke up, the circle of light disappeared and I felt myself crushed under an enormous weight.

It was not the thought of death, or fear; it was nameless. My cheeks burned and my head ached.

It shook myself and looked at my two friends. Tom had hidden his face in his hands. I could only see the fat white nape of his neck. Little Juan was the worst, his mouth was open and his nostrils trembled. The doctor went and put his hand on his shoulder as if to comfort him: but his eyes stayed cold. Then I saw the Belgian’s hand drop stealthily along Juan’s arm, down to the wrist. Juan paid no attention. The Belgian took his wrist between three fingers, distractedly, the same time drawing away a little and turning his back to me. But I leaned backward and saw him take a watch from his pocket and look at it for a moment, never letting go of the wrist. After a minute he let the hand fall inert and went and leaned his back against the wall, then, as if he suddenly remembered something very important which had to be jotted down on the spot, he took a notebook from him pocket and wrote a few lines. “Bastard,” I thought angrily, “let him come and take my pulse. I’ll shove my fist in his rotten face.

He didn’t come but I felt him watching me. I raised my head and returned his look. Impersonally, he said to me, “Doesn’t it seem cold to you here?” He looked cold, he was blue.

“I’m not cold,” I told him.

He never took his hard eyes off me. Suddenly I understood and my hands went to my face: I was drenched in sweat. In this cellar, in the midst of winter, in the midst of draughts, I was sweating. I ran my hands through my hair, gummed together with perspiration; t the same time I saw my shirt was damp and sticking to my skin: I had been dripping for an hour and hadn’t felt it. But that swine of a Belgian hadn’t missed a thing; he had seen the drops rolling down my cheeks and thought: this is the manifestation of an almost pathological state of terror; and he had felt normal and proud of being so because he was cold. I* wanted to stand up and smash his face but no sooner had I made the slightest gesture than my rage and shame were wiped out; I fell back on the bench with indifference.

I satisfied myself by rubbing my neck with my handkerchief because now I felt the sweat dropping from my hair on to my neck and it was unpleasant. I soon gave up rubbing, it was useless; my handkerchief was already soaked and I was still sweating. My buttocks were sweating too and my damp trousers were glued to the bench.

Suddenly Juan spoke, “You’re a doctor?”

“Yes,” the Belgian said.

“Does it hurt . . . very long?”

“Eh? When . . . Oh, no,” the Belgian said paternally. “Not at all. It’s over quickly.” He acted as though he were calming a cash customer.

“But I . . . they told me . . . sometimes they have to fire twice.”

“Sometimes,” the Belgian said, nodding. “It may happen that the first volley reaches no vital organs.”

“Then they have to reload their rifles and aim all over again?” He thought for a moment and then added hoarsely,” That takes time!”

He had a terrible fear of suffering; it was all he thought about: it was his age. I never thought much about it and it wasn’t fear of suffering that made me sweat.

I got up and walked to the pile of coal dust. Tom jumped up and threw me a hateful look:

I had annoyed him because my shoes squeaked. I wondered if my face looked as earthy as his: I saw he was sweating too. The sky was superb, no light filtered into the dark corner and I had only to raise my head to see the Big Dipper. But it wasn’t like it had been: the night before I could see a great piece of sky from my monastery cell and each hour of the day brought me a different memory. Morning, when the sky was a hard, light blue, I thought of beaches on the Atlantic; at noon I saw the sun and I remembered a bar in Seville where I drank manzanilla and ate olives and anchovies; afternoon I was in the shade and I thought of the deep shadow which spreads over half a bull-ring leaving the other half shimmering in sunlight; it was really hard to see the whole world reflected in the sky like that. But now I could watch the sky as much as I pleased, it no longer evoked anything in me. I liked that better. I came back and sat near Tom. A long moment passed.

Tom began speaking in a low voice. He had to talk, without that he wouldn’t have been able to recognize himself in his own mind. I thought he was talking to me but he wasn’t looking at me. He was undoubtedly afraid to see me as I was, grey and sweating: we were alike and worse than mirrors of each other. He watched the Belgian, the living.

“Do you understand?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

I began to speak in a low voice too. I watched the Belgian. “Why? What’s the matter?”

“Something is going to happen to us that I can’t understand.”

There was a strange smell about Tom. It seemed to me I was more sensitive than usual to odours. I Grinned. “You’ll understand in a while.”

“It isn’t clear,” he said obstinately. “I want to be brave but at least I have to know . . . Listen,

They’re going to take us into the courtyard. Good. They’re going to stand up in front of us. How many?”

“I don’t know. Five or eight. Not more.”

“All right, there’ll be eight. Someone’ll holler ‘aim!’ and I’ll see eight rifles looking at me. I’ll

Think how I’d like to get inside the wall, I’ll push against it with my back . . . with my back . . . with every ounce of strength I have, but the wall will stay, like in a nightmare. I can imagine all that. If you only knew how well I can imagine it.”

“All right, all right!” I said, “I can imagine it too.”

“It must hurt like hell. You know, they aim at the eyes and the mouth to disfigure you,” he added maliciously. “I can feel the wounds already; I’ve had pains in my head and in my neck for the past hour. Not real pains. Worse. This is what I’m going to feel tomorrow morning. And then what?”

I well understood what he meant but I didn’t want to act as if I did. I had pains too, pains in my body like a crowd of tiny scars. I attached no importance to it.

“After,” I said, “you’ll be pushing up daisies.”

He began to talk to himself: he never stopped watching the Belgian. The Belgian didn’t seem to be listening. I knew what he had come to do; he wasn’t interested in what we thought; he came to watch our bodies, bodies dying in agony while yet alive.

“It’s like a nightmare,” tom was saying. “You want to think something, you always have the impression that it’s all right, that you’re going to understand and then it slips, it escapes you and fades away. I tell myself there will be nothing afterwards. But I don’t understand what it means. Sometimes I almost can . . . and then it fades away and I start thinking about the pains again, bullets, and explosions. I’m a materialist, I swear it to you; I’m not going crazy. But something’s the matter. I swear my corpse; that’s not hard but I’m the one who sees it, with my eyes. I’ve got to think . . . think that I won’t see anything anymore and the world will go on for the others. We aren’t made to think that, Pablo. Believe me: I’ve already stayed up a whole night waiting for something. But this isn’t the same: this will creep up behind us, Pablo, and we won’t be able to prepare for it.”

“Shut up,” I said, “Do you want me to call a priest?”

He didn’t answer. I had already noticed he had a tendency to act like a prophet and call me Pablo, speaking in a toneless voice. I didn’t like that: but it seems all the Irish are that way. I had the vague impression he smelled of urine. Fundamentally, I hadn’t much sympathy for Tom and I didn’t see why, under the pretext of dying together, I should have any more. It would have been different with some others. With Ramon Gris, for example. But I felt alone between Tom and Juan. I liked that better, anyhow: with Ramon I might have been more deeply moved. But I was terribly hard just then and I wanted to stay hard.

He kept on chewing his words, with something like distraction. He certainly talked to keep himself from thinking. He certainly talked to keep himself from thinking. He smelled of urine like an old prostate case. Naturally, I agreed with him, I could have said everything he said: it isn’t natural to die. And since I was going to die, nothing seemed natural to me, not this pile of coal dust, or the bench, or Pedro’s ugly face. Only it didn’t please me to think the same things as Tom. And I knew that, all through the night, every five minutes, we would keep on thinking thins at the same time. I looked at him sideways and for the first time he seemed strange to me: he wore death on his face. MY pride was wounded: for the past twenty-four hours I had lived next to Tom, I had listened to him, I had spoken to him and I knew we had nothing in common. And now we looked as much alike as twin brothers, simply because we were going to die together. Tom took my hand without looking at me.

“Pablo, I wonder . . . I wonder if it’s really true that everything ends.”

I took my hand away and said, “Look between your feet, you pig.”

There was a big puddle between his feet and drops fell from his pants-let.

“What is it?” he asked, frightened.

“You’re pissing in your pants,” I told him.

“It isn’t true,” he said furiously. “I’m not pissing. I don’t feel anything.”

“The Belgian approached us. He asked with false solicitude, “Do you feel ill?”

Tom did not answer. The Belgian looked at the puddle and said nothing.

“I don’t know what it is,” Tom said ferociously.

“But I’m not afraid. I swear I’m not afraid.”

The Belgian did not answer. Tom got up and went to piss in a corner. He came back buttoning his fly, and sat down without a word. The Belgian was taking notes.

All three of us watched him because he was alive. He had the motions of a living human being, the cares of a living human being; he shivered in the cellar the way the livings are supposed to shiver; he had an obedient, well-fed body. The rest of us hardly felt ours-not in the same way anyhow. I wanted to feel my pants between my legs but I didn’t dare; I watched the Belgian, balancing on his legs, master of his muscles, someone who could think about tomorrow. There we were, three bloodless shadows; we watched him and we sucked his life like vampires.

Finally he went over to little Juan. Did he want to feel his neck for some professional motive or was he obeying an impulse of charity? If he was acting by charity it was the only time during the whole night.

He caressed Juan’s head and neck. The kid let himself be handled, his eyes never leaving him, and then suddenly, he seized the hand and looked at it strangely. He held the Belgian’s hand between his own two hands and there was nothing pleasant about them, two grey pincers gripping this fat and reddish hand. I suspected what was going to happen and Tom must have suspected to too: but the Belgian didn’t see a thing, he smiled paternally. After a moment the kid brought the fat red hand to his mouth and tried to bite it. The Belgian pulled away quickly and stumbled back against the wall. For a second he looked at us with horror, he must have suddenly understood that we were not men like him. I began to laugh and one of the guards jumped up. The other was asleep, his wide-open eyes were blank.

I felt relaxed and over-excited at the same time. I didn’t want to think any more about what would happen at dawn, or death. It made no sense. I only found words or emptiness. But as soon as I tried to think of anything else I saw rifle barrels pointing at me. I lived my execution twenty times perhaps; once I even thought it was for good: I must have slept a minute. They were dragging me to the wall and I was struggling; I was asking for mercy. I was up with a start and looked at the Belgian: I was afraid I might have cried out in my sleep. But he was stroking his moustache, he hadn’t noticed anything. If I had wanted to, I think I could have slept a while; I had been awake for 48 hours. I was at the end of my tether.

But I didn’t want to lose two hours of life: they would come to wake me up at dawn, I would follow them stupefied with sleep and I would have croaked without so much as an “Oof!” : I didn’t want that, I didn’t want to die like an animal, I wanted to understand. Then I was afraid of having nightmares. I got up, walked back and forth, and, to change my ideas, I began to think about my past life. A crowd of memories came back to me pell-mell. There were good and bad ones-or at least I called them that before. There were faces and incidents. I saw the face of a little novillero who was gored in Valencia during the Feria, the face of one of my uncles, the face or Ramon Gris. I remembered my whole life: how I was out of work for three months in 1926, how I almost starved to death. I remembered a night I spent on a bench in Granada: I hadn’t eaten for three days. I was angry, I didn’t want to die. That made me smile. How madly I ran after happiness, after women, after liberty. Why? I wanted to free Spain, I admired Pi y Margall, I joined the anarchist movement, I spoke at public meetings: I took everything as seriously as if I were immortal.

At that moment I felt that I had my whole life in front of me and I thought, “It’s a damned lie.” It was worth nothing because it was finished. I wondered how I’d been able to walk, to laugh with the girls: I wouldn’t have moved so such as my little finger if I had only imagined I would die like this. MY life was in front of me, shut, closed, like a bag and yet everything inside of it was unfinished. For an instant I tried to judge it. I wanted to tell myself, this is a beautiful life. But I couldn’t pass judgment on it; it was only a sketch; I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity, I had understood nothing. I had missed nothing: there were so many things I could have missed the taste of Manzanilla or the baths I took in summer in a little creek near Cadiz; but death had disenchanted everything.

The Belgian suddenly had a bright idea. “MY friends,” he told us, “I will undertake if the military administration will allow it-to send a message for you. A souvenir to those who love you…...”

Tom mumbled, “I don’t have anybody.”

I said nothing. Tom waited an instant then looked at me with curiosity. “You don’t have anything to concha?”

“No.”

“I hated this tender complicity: it was my own fault, I had talked about Concha the night before, I should have controlled myself. I was with her for a year. I should have controlled myself. I was with her for a year. Last night I would have given an arm to see her again for five minutes. That was why I talked about her; it was stronger that I was. Now I had no more desire to see her, I had nothing more to say to her. I would not even have wanted to hold her in my arms: my body filled me with horror because it was grey and sweating-and I wasn’t sure that her body didn’t fill me with horror. Concha would cry when she found out I was dead; she would have no taste for life for months afterwards. But I was still the one who was going to die. I thought of her soft, beautiful eyes. When she looked at me something passed from her to me. But I knew it was over: if she looked at me now the look would stay in her eyes, it wouldn’t reach me. I was alone.

Tom was alone too but not in the same way. Sitting cross-legged, he had begun to stare at the bench with a sort of smile, he looked amazed. He put out his hand and touched the wood cautiously as if he were afraid of breaking something, then drew back his hand quickly and shuddered. If I had been Tom I wouldn’t have amused myself by touching the bench; this was some more Irish nonsense, but I too found that objects had a funny look: they were more obliterated, less dense than usual. It was enough for me to look at the bench, the lamp, the pile of coal dust, to feel that I was going to die. Naturally I couldn’t think clearly about my death but I saw it everywhere, on things, in the way things fell back and kept their distance, discreetly, as people who speak quietly at the bedside of a dying man. It was his death which Tom had just touched on the bench.

In the state I was in, if someone had come and told me I could go home quietly, that they would leave me my life whole, it would have left me cold: several hours or several years of waiting is all the same when you have lost the illusion of being eternal. I clung to nothing, in a way I was calm. But it was a horrible calm-because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes, I heard with its ears, but it was no longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself and I didn’t recognize it any more. I had to touch it and look at it to find out what was happening, as if it were the body of someone else. At times I could still feel it, I felt sinking and fallings, as when you’re in a plane taking a nosedive, or I felt my heart beating. But that didn’t reassure me. Everything that came from my body was all cockeyed. Most of the time it was quiet and I felt no more than a sort of weight, a filthy presence against me; I had the impression of being tied to an enormous vermin. Once I felt my pants and I felt they were damp; I didn’t know whether it was sweat or urine, but I went to piss on the coal pile as a precaution.

The Belgian took out his watch, looked at it. He said, “It is three thirty.”

Bastard! He must have done it on purpose. Tom jumped; we hadn’t noticed time was running out; night surrounded us like a shapeless, somber mass, I couldn’t even remember that it had begun.

Little Juan began to cry. He wrung his hands, pleaded, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

He ran across the whole cellar waving his arms in the air then fell sobbing on one of the mats. Tom watched him with mournful eyes, without the slightest desire to console him. Because it wasn’t worth the trouble: the kid made more noise than we did, but he was less touched: he was like a sick man who defends himself against his illness by fever. It’s much more serious when there isn’t nay fever.

He wept: I could clearly see he pitied himself; he wasn’t thinking about death. For one second, one single second, I wanted to weep myself, to weep with pity for myself. But the opposite happened: I glanced at the kid, I saw his thin sobbing shoulders and I felt inhuman: I could pity neither the others nor myself. I said to myself, “I want to die cleanly.”

Tom had got up, he placed himself just under the round opening and began to watch for daylight of that. But ever since the doctor told us the hour, I felt time flying, flowing away drop by drop.

It was still dark when I heard Tom’s voice: “Do you hear them?”

“Yes.”

Men were marching in the courtyard.

“What the hell are they doing? They can’t shoot in the dark.”

After a while we heard no more. I said to Tom, “its day.”

Pedro got up, yawning, and came to blow out the lamp. He said to his companion, “Gold as hell.”

The cellar was all grey. We heard shots in the distance.

“It’s staring,” I told Tom. “They must do it in the court in the rear.”

Tom asked the doctor for a cigarette. I didn’t want one: I didn’t want cigarettes or alcohol. From that moment on they never stopped firing.

“Do you realize what’s happening?” Tom said.

He wanted to add something but kept quite, watching the door. The door opened and a lieutenant came in the four soldiers, Tom dropped his cigarette.

“Steinbock?”

Tom didn’t answer. Pedro pointed him out.

“Juan Mirbal?”

“On the mat.”

“Get up”, the lieutenant said.

Juan did not move. Two soldiers took him under the arms and set him on his feet. But he fell as soon as they released him.

The soldiers hesitated.

“He’s not the first sick one,” said the lieutenant. “You two carry him; they’ll fix it up down there.”

He turned to Tom. Let’s go.”

Tom went out between two soldiers. Two others followed, carrying the kid by the armpits and legs. He ran down his cheeks. When I wanted to go out the lieutenant stopped me.

“You lbbieta?”

“Yes.”

“You wait here; they’ll come for you later.”

They left. The Belgian and the two jailers let too, I was alone. I did not understand what was happening to me but I would have liked it better if they had got it over with right away. I heard shots at almost regular intervals; I shook with each one them. I wanted to scream and tear out hair. But I gritted my teeth and pushed my hands in my pockets because I wanted to stay clean.

After an hour they came to get me and led me to the first floor, to a small room that smelt of cigars and where the heat was stifling. There were two officers sitting smoking in the armchair, papers on their knees.

“You’re lbbieta?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Ramón Gris?”

“I don’t know.”

The one questioning me was short and fat. His eyes were hard behind his glasses. He said to me, “Come here.”

I went to him. He got up and looks my arms, staring at me with a look that should have pushed me into the earth. At the same time he pinched my biceps with all his might. It wasn’t to hurt me, it was only a game; he wanted to dominate me. He also thought had to blow his stinking breath square in my face. He stayed for a moment like that, and I almost felt like laughing. It takes a lot to intimidate a man who is going to die; it didn’t work. He pushed me back violently and sat down again. He said, “It’s his life against yours. You can have yours if you tell us where he is.”

These men dolled up with their riding crops and boots were still going to die. A little later then I, but not too much. They busied themselves looking for names in their crumpled papers, they run after other men to imprison or suppress them; they had opinions on the future of Spain and on other subjects. Their little activities seemed shocking and burlesqued to me; I couldn’t put myself in their place, I thought they were insane.

The little man was still looking at me, whipping his boots with the riding crop. All his gestures were calculated to give him the look of a live and ferocious beast.

“So? You understand?”

“I don’t know where Girs is,” I answered. “I thought he was in Madrid.”

The other officer raised his pale hand indolently. This indolence was also calculated. I saw through all their little schemes and I was stupefied to find there were men who amused themselves that way.

“You have a quarter of an hour to think it over,” he said slowly. “Take him to the laundry; bring him back in fifteen minutes. If he still refuses he will be executed on the spot.”

They knew what they were doing: I had passed the night in waiting; then they had made me wait an hour in the cellar while they shot Tom and Juan and now they were locking me up in the laundry; they must have prepared their game the night before. They told themselves that nerves eventually wear out and they hoped to get me that way.

They were badly mistaken. In the laundry I sat on a stool because I felt very weak and I began to think. But not about their proposition. Of course I knew where Gris was; he was hiding with his cousins, four kilometers from the city. I also knew that I would not reveal his hiding place unless they tortured me (but they didn’t seem to be thinking about that). All that was perfectly regulated, definite and in no way interested me. Only I would have liked to understand the reasons for my conduct. I would rather die than give up Gris. Why? I didn’t like Ramon Gris any more. My friendship for him had died a little while before dawn at the same time as my love for Concha, at the same time as my desire to live. Undoubtedly I thought highly of him: he was tough. But it was not for this reason that I consented to die in his place; his life had no more value than mine; no life had value. They were going to slap a man up against a wall and shoot at him till he died, whether it was me or Gris or somebody else made no difference. I knew he was more useful than I to the cause of Spain and anarchy; nothing was important. Yet I was there, I could save my skin and give up Gris and I refused to do it.

I found that somehow comic; it was obstinacy. I thought, “I must be stubborn!” And a droll sort of gaiety spread over me.

They came for me and brought me back to the two officers. A rat ran out from under my feet and that amused me. I turned to one of the falangistas and said, “Did you see the rat?”

He didn’t answer. He was very sober, he took himself seriously. I wanted to laugh but I held myself back because I was afraid that once I got started I wouldn’t be able to stop. They falagistas had a moustache. I said to him again, “You ought to shave off your moustache, idiot.” I thought it funny that he would let the hairs of his living being invade his face. He kicked me without great conviction and I kept quiet.

“Well,” said the fat officer, “have you thought about it?”

I looked at them with curiosity, as insects of a very rare species. I told them, “I know where he is. He is hidden in the cemetery. In a vault or in the grave-diggers’ shack.” It was a farce. I wanted to see them stand up, buckle their belts and give orders busily.

They jumped top their feet. “Let’s go, Moles. Get fifteen men from Lieutenant Lopez. You,” the little fat man said, “I’ll let you off if you’re telling the truth, but it’ll cost you plenty if you’re making monkeys out us.”

They left in a great clatter and I waited peacefully under the guard of falangistas. From time to time I smiled, thinking about the spectacle they would make. I felt stunned and malicious. I imagined them lifting up tombstones, opening the doors of the vaults one by one. I represented this situation to myself as if I had been someone else: this prisoner obstinately playing the hero, these grim falangistas with their moustaches and their men in uniform running among the graves; it was irresistibly funny.

After half an hour the little fat man came back alone. I thought he came to give the orders to execute me. The orders must have stayed in the cemetery.

The officer looked at me. He didn’t look at all sheepish. “Take him into the big courtyard with the others,” he said, “After the military operations a regular court will decide what happiness to him.”

I didn’t think I had understood. I asked:

“Then they’re not…..not going to shoot me?”

“Not now, anyway. What happens afterwards is none of my business.”

I still didn’t understand. I asked, “But why….?”

He shrugged his shoulders without answering and the soldiers took me away. In the big courtyard there were about a hundred prisoners, women, children and a few old men. I began walking around the central grass-plot, I was stupefied. At noon they let us eat in the mess hall. Two or there people questioned me. I must have known them, but I didn’t answer: I didn’t even know where I was.

Around evening they pushed about ten new prisoners into the court. I recognized Garcia, the baker. He said, “What dammed luck you have! I didn’t think I’d see you alive.”

“They sentenced me to death,” I said, “and then they changed their minds. I don’t know why.”

“They arrested me at two o’clock,” Garcia said.

“Why?” Garcia had nothing to do with politics.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They arrest everybody who doesn’t think the way they do.” He lowered his voice. “They got Gris.”

I began to tremble. “When?”

“This morning. He balled it up. He left his cousin’s on Tuesday because they had an argument. There were plenty of people to hide him but he didn’t want to owe anything to anybody. He said, ‘I’d go and hide in Ibbieta’s place, but they got him, so I’ll hide in the cemetery.”

“In the cemetery?”

“Yes. What a fool. Of course they went by there this morning that was sure to happen.

They found him in the gravediggers’ shack. He shot at them and they got him.”

“In the cemetery!”

Everybody began to spin and I found myself sitting on the ground: I laughed so hard, I cried.

--------------------------

Preface to Fanon's 'Wretched of the Earth'

Jean Paul Sartre

Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it. Between the two there were hired kinglets, overlords and a bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end, which served as go-betweens. In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European élite undertook to manufacture a native élite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of western culture, they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth. After a short stay in the mother country they were sent home, whitewashed. These walking lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed. From Paris, from London, from Amsterdam we would utter the words ‘Parthenon! Brotherhood!’ and somewhere in Africa or Asia lips would open ... thenon! ... therhood!’ It was the golden age.

It came to an end; the mouths opened by themselves; the yellow and black voices still spoke of our humanism but only to reproach us with our inhumanity. We listened without displeasure to these polite statements of resentment, at first with proud amazement. What? They are able to talk by themselves? Just look at what we have made of them! We did not doubt but that they would accept our ideals, since they accused us of not being faithful to them. Then, indeed, Europe could believe in her mission; she had hellenized the Asians; she had created a new breed, the Graeco-Latin Negroes. We might add, quite between ourselves, as men of the world: ‘After all, let them bawl their heads off, it relieves their feelings; dogs that bark don’t bite.’

A new generation came on the scene, which changed the issue. With unbelievable patience, its writers and poets tried to explain to us that our values and the true facts of their lives did not hang together, and that they could neither reject them completely nor yet assimilate them. By and large, what they were saying was this: ‘You are making us into monstrosities; your humanism claim we are at one with the rest of humanity but your racist methods set us apart.’ Very much at our ease, we listened to them all; colonial administrators are not paid to read Hegel, and for that matter they do not read much of him, but they do not need a philosopher to tell them that uneasy consciences are caught up in their own contradictions. They will not get anywhere; so, let us perpetuate their discomfort; nothing will come of it but talk. If they were, the experts told us, asking for anything at all precise in their wailing, it would be integration. Of course, there is no question of granting that; the system, which depends on over-exploitation, as you know, would be ruined. But it’s enough to hold the carrot in front of their noses, they’ll gallop all right. As to a revolt, we need not worry at all; what native in his senses would go off to massacre the fair sons of Europe simply to become European as they are? In short, we encouraged these disconsolate spirits and thought it not a bad idea for once to award the Prix Goncourt to a Negro. That was before ’39.

1961. Listen: ‘Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience.’ The tone is new. Who dares to speak thus? It is an African, a man from the Third World, an ex-‘native’. He adds: ‘Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to keep away from it.’ In other words, she’s done for. A truth which is not pleasant to state but of which we are all convinced, are we not, fellow-Europeans, in the marrow of our bones?

We must however make one reservation. When a Frenchman, for example, says to other Frenchmen ‘The country is done for’ — which has happened, I should think, almost every day since 1930 — it is emotional talk; burning with love and fury, the speaker includes himself with his fellow-countrymen. And then, usually, he adds ‘Unless ...’ His meaning is clear; no more mistakes must be made; if his instructions are not carried out to the letter, then and only then will the country go to pieces. In short, it is a threat followed by a piece of advice and these remarks are so much the less shocking in that they spring from a national intersubjectivity. But on the contrary when Fanon says of Europe that she is rushing to her doom, far from sounding the alarm he is merely setting out a diagnosis. This doctor neither claims that she is a hopeless case — miracles have been known to exist — nor does he give her the means to cure herself. He certifies that she is dying, on external evidence, founded on symptoms that he can observe. As to curing her, no; he has other things to think about; he does not give a damn whether she lives or dies. Because of this, his book is scandalous. And if you murmur, jokingly embarrassed, ‘He has it in for us!’ the true nature of the scandal escapes you; for Fanon has nothing in for you at all; his work — red-hot for some — in what concerns you is as cold as ice; he speaks of you often, never to you. The black Goncourts and the yellow Nobels are finished; the days of colonized laureats are over. An ex-native French-speaking, bends that language to new requirements, makes use of it, and speaks to the colonized only: ‘Natives of an under-developed countries, unite!’ What a downfall! For the fathers, we alone were the speakers; the sons no longer even consider us as valid intermediaries: we are the objects of their speeches. Of course, Fanon mentions in passing our well-known crimes: Sétif, Hanoi, Madagascar: but he does not waste his time in condemning them; he uses them. If he demonstrates the tactics of colonialism, the complex play of relations which unite and oppose the colonists to the people of the mother country, it is for his brothers; his aim is to teach them to beat us at our own game.

In short, the Third World finds itself and speaks to itself through his voice. We know that it is not a homogeneous world; we know too that enslaved peoples are still to be found there, together with some who have achieved a simulacrum of phoney independence, others who are still fighting to attain sovereignty and others again who have obtained complete freedom but who live under the constant menace of imperialist aggression. These differences are born of colonial history, in other words of oppression. Here, the mother country is satisfied to keep some feudal rulers in her pay; there, dividing and ruling she has created a native bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end; elsewhere she has played a double game: the colony is planted with settlers and exploited at the same time. Thus Europe has multiplied divisions and opposing groups, has fashioned classes and sometimes even racial prejudices, and has endeavoured by every means to bring about and intensify the stratification of colonized societies. Fanon hides nothing: in order to fight against us the former colony must fight against itself: or, rather, the two struggles form part of a whole. In the heat of battle, all internal barriers break down; the puppet bourgeoisie of businessmen and shopkeepers, the urban proletariat, which is always in a privileged position, the lumpen-proletariat of the shanty towns — all fall into line with the stand made by the rural masses, that veritable reservoir of a national revolutionary army; for in those countries where colonialism has deliberately held up development, the peasantry, when it rises, quickly stands out as the revolutionary class. For it knows naked oppression, and suffers far more from it than the workers in the towns, and in order not to die of hunger, it demands no less than a complete demolishing of all existing structures. In order to triumph, the national revolution must be socialist; if its career is cut short, if the native bourgeoisie takes over power, the new State, in spite of its formal sovereignty, remains in the hands of the imperialists. The example of Katanga illustrates this quite well. Thus the unity of the Third World is not yet achieved. It is a work in progress, which begins by the union, in each country, after independence as before, of the whole of the colonized under the command of the peasant class. This is what Fanon explains to his brothers in Africa, Asia and Latin America: we must achieve revolutionary socialism all together everywhere, or else one by one we will be defeated by our former masters. He hides nothing, neither weaknesses, nor discords, nor mystification. Here, the movement gets off to a bad start; then, after a striking initial success it loses momentum; elsewhere it has come to a standstill, and if it is to start again, the peasants must throw their bourgeoisie overboard. The reader is sternly put on his guard against the most dangerous will o’ the wisps: the cult of the leader and of personalities, Western culture, and what is equally to be feared, the withdrawal into the twilight of past African culture. For the only true culture is that of the Revolution; that is to say, it is constantly in the making. Fanon speaks out loud; we Europeans can hear him, as the fact that you hold this book in your hand proves; is he not then afraid that the colonial powers may take advantage of his sincerity?

No; he fears nothing. Our methods are out-of-date; they can sometimes delay emancipation, but not stop it. And do not think that we can change our ways; neo-colonialism, that idle dream of mother countries, is a lot of hot air; the ‘Third Forces’ don’t exist, or if they do they are only the tin-pot bourgeoisies that colonialism has already placed in the saddle. Our Machiavellianism has little purchase on this wide-awake world that has run our falsehoods to earth one after the other. The settler has only recourse to one thing: brute force, when he can command it; the native has only one choice, between servitude or supremacy. What does Fanon care whether you read his work or not? It is to his brothers that he denounces our old tricks, and he is sure we have no more up our sleeves. It is to them he says: ‘Europe has laid her hands on our continents, and we must slash at her fingers till she lets go. It’s a good moment; nothing can happen at Bizerta, at Elizabethville or in the Algerian bled that the whole world does not hear about. The rival blocks take opposite sides, and hold each other in check; let us take advantage of this paralysis, let us burst into history, forcing it by our invasion into universality for the first time. Let us start fighting; and if we've no other arms, the waiting knife’s enough.’

Europeans, you must open this book and enter into it. After a few steps in the darkness you will see strangers gathered around a fire; come close, and listen, for they are talking of the destiny they will mete out to your trading-centres and to the hired soldiers who defend them. They will see you, perhaps, but they will go on talking among themselves, without even lowering their voices. This indifference strikes home: their fathers, shadowy creatures, your creatures, were but dead souls; you it was who allowed them glimpses of light, to you only did they dare speak, and you did not bother to reply to such zombies. Their sons ignore you; a fire warms them and sheds light around them, and you have not lit it. Now, at a respectful distance, it is you who will feel furtive, nightbound and perished with cold. Turn and turn about; in these shadows from whence a new dawn will break, it is you who are the zombies.

In this case, you will say, let’s throw away this book. Why read it if it is not written for us? For two reasons; the first is that Fanon explains you to his brothers and shows them the mechanism by which we are estranged from ourselves; take advantage of this, and get to know yourselves seen in the light of truth, objectively. Our victims know us by their scars and by their chains, and it is this that makes their evidence irrefutable. It is enough that they show us what we have made of them for us to realize what we have made of ourselves. But is it any use? Yes, for Europe is at death’s door. But, you will say, we live in the mother country, and we disapprove of her excesses. It is true, you are not settlers, but you are no better. For the pioneers belonged to you; you sent them overseas, and it was you they enriched. You warned them that if they shed too much blood you would disown them, or say you did, in something of the same way as any state maintains abroad a mob of agitators, agents provocateurs and spies whom it disowns when they are caught. You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name. Fanon reveals to his comrades above all to some of them who are rather too Westernized — the solidarity of the people of the mother country and of their representatives in the colonies. Have the courage to read this book, for in the first place it will make you ashamed, and shame, as Marx said, is a revolutionary sentiment. You see, I, too, am incapable of ridding myself of subjective illusions; I, too, say to you: ‘All is lost, unless ...’ As a European, I steal the enemy’s book, and out of it I fashion a remedy for Europe. Make the most of it.

And here is the second reason: if you set aside Sorel’s fascist utterances, you will find that Fanon is the first since Engels to bring the processes of history into the clear light of day. Moreover, you need not think that hot-headedness or an unhappy childhood have given him some uncommon taste for violence; he acts as the interpreter of the situation, that’s all. But this is enough to enable him to constitute, step by step, the dialectic which liberal hypocrisy hides from you and which is as much responsible for our existence as for his.

During the last century, the middle classes looked on the workers as covetous creatures, made lawless by their greedy desires; but they took care to include these great brutes in our own species, or at least they considered that they were free men — that is to say, free to sell their labour. In France, as in England, humanism claimed to be universal.

In the case of forced labour, it is quite the contrary. There is no contract; moreover, there must be intimidation and thus oppression grows. Our soldiers overseas, rejecting the universalism of the mother country, apply the ‘numerus clausus’ to the human race: since none may enslave, rob or kill his fellowman without committing a crime, they lay down the principle that the native is not one of our fellow-men. Our striking-power has been given the mission of changing this abstract certainty into reality: the order is given to reduce the inhabitants of the annexed country to the level of superior monkeys in order to justify the settler’s treatment of them as beasts of burden. Violence in the colonies does not only have for its aim the keeping of these enslaved men at arm’s length; it seeks to dehumanize them. Everything will be done to wipe out their traditions, to substitute our language for theirs and to destroy their culture without giving them ours. Sheer physical fatigue win stupefy them. Starved and ill, if they have any spirit left, fear will finish the job; guns are levelled at the peasant; civilians come to take over his land and force him by dint of flogging to till the land for them. If he shows fight, the soldiers fire and he’s a dead man; if he gives in, he degrades himself and he is no longer a man at all; shame and fear will split up his character and make his inmost self fall to pieces. The business is conducted with flying colours and by experts: the ‘psychological services’ weren’t established yesterday; nor was brain-washing. And yet, in spite of an these efforts, their ends are nowhere achieved: neither in the Congo, where Negroes’ hands were cut off, nor in Angola, where until very recently malcontents’ lips were pierced in order to shut them with padlocks. I do not say that it is impossible to change a Man into an animal I simply say that you won’t get there without weakening him considerably. Blows will never suffice; you have to push the starvation further, and that’s the trouble with slavery.

For when you domesticate a member of our own species, you reduce his output, and however little you may give him, a farmyard man finishes by costing more than he brings in. For this reason the settlers are obliged to stop the breaking-in half-way; the result, neither man nor animal, is the native. Beaten, under-nourished, ill, terrified — but only up to a certain point — he has, whether he’s black, yellow or white, always the same traits of character: he’s a sly-boots, a lazybones and a thief, who lives on nothing, and who understands only violence.

Poor settler; here is his contradiction naked, shorn of its trappings. He ought to kill those he plunders, as they say djinns do. Now, this is not possible, because he must exploit them as well. Because he can’t carry massacre on to genocide, and slavery to animal-like degradation, he loses control, the machine goes into reverse, and a relentless logic leads him on to decolonization.

But it does not happen immediately. At first the European’s reign continues. He has already lost the battle, but this is not obvious; he does not yet know that the natives are only half-native; to hear him talk, it would seem that he ill-treats them in order to destroy or to repress the evil that they have rooted in them; and after three generations their pernicious instincts will reappear no more. What instincts does he mean? The instincts that urge slaves on to massacre their master? Can he not here recognize his own cruelty turned against himself? In the savagery of these oppressed peasants, does he not find his own settler’s savagery, which they have absorbed through every pore and for which there is no cure? The reason is simple; this imperious being, crazed by his absolute power and by the fear of losing it, no longer remembers clearly that he was once a man; he takes himself for a horsewhip or a gun; he has come to believe that the domestication of the ‘inferior races’ will come about by the conditioning of their reflexes. But in this he leaves out of account the human memory and the ineffaceable marks left upon it; and then, above all there is something which perhaps he has never known: we only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us. Three generations did we say? Hardly has the second generation opened their eyes than from then on they’ve seen their fathers being flogged. In psychiatric terms, they are ‘traumatized’, for life. But these constantly renewed aggressions, far from bringing them to submission, thrust them into an unbearable contradiction which the European will pay for sooner or later. After that, when it is their turn to be broken in, when they are taught what shame and hunger and pain are, all that is stirred up in them is a volcanic fury whose force is equal to that of the pressure put upon them. You said they understand nothing but violence? Of course; first, the only violence is the settlers; but soon they will make it their own; that is to say, the same violence is thrown back upon us as when our reflection comes forward to meet us when we go towards a mirror.

Make no mistake about it; by this mad fury, by this bitterness and spleen, by their ever-present desire to kill us, by the permanent tensing of powerful muscles which are afraid to relax, they have become men: men because of the settler, who wants to make beasts of burden of them — because of him, and against him. Hatred, blind hatred which is as yet an abstraction, is their only wealth; the Master calls it forth because he seeks to reduce them to animals, but he fails to break it down because his interests stop him half-way. Thus the ‘half-natives’ are still humans, through the power and the weakness of the oppressor which is transformed within them into a stubborn refusal of the animal condition. We realize what follows; they’re lazy: of course — it’s a form of sabotage. they’re sly and thieving; just imagine! But their petty thefts mark the beginning of a resistance which is still unorganized. That is not enough; there are those among them who assert themselves by throwing themselves barehanded against the guns; these are their heroes. Others make men of themselves by murdering Europeans, and these are shot down; brigands or martyrs, their agony exalts the terrified masses.

Yes, terrified; at this fresh stage, colonial aggression turns inward in a current of terror among the natives. By this I do not only mean the fear that they experience when faced with our inexhaustible means of repression but also that which their own fury produces in them. They are cornered between our guns pointed at them and those terrifying compulsions, those desires for murder which spring from the depth of their spirits and which they do not always recognize; for at first it is not their violence, it is ours, which turns back on itself and rends them; and the first action of these oppressed creatures is to bury deep down that hidden anger which their and our moralities condemn and which is however only the last refuge of their humanity. Read Fanon: you will learn how, in the period of their helplessness, their mad impulse to murder is the expression of the natives’ collective unconscious.

If this suppressed fury fails to find an outlet, it turns in a vacuum and devastates the oppressed creatures themselves. In order to free themselves they even massacre each other. The different tribes fight between themselves since they cannot face the real enemy — and you can count on colonial policy to keep up their rivalries; the man who raises his knife against his brother thinks that he has destroyed once and for all the detested image of their common degradation, even though these expiatory victims don’t quench their thirst for blood. They can only stop themselves from marching against the machine-guns by doing our work for us; of their own accord they will speed up the dehumanisation that they reject. Under the amused eye of the settler, they will take the greatest precautions against their own kind by setting up supernatural barriers, at times reviving old and terrible myths, at others binding themselves by scrupulous rites. It is in this way that an obsessed person flees from his deepest needs — by binding himself to certain observances which require his attention at every turn. They dance; that keeps them busy; it relaxes their painfully contracted muscles; and then the dance mimes secretly, often without their knowing, the refusal they cannot utter and the murders they dare not commit. In certain districts they make use of that last resort — possession by spirits. Formerly this was a religious experience in all its simplicity, a certain communion of the faithful with sacred things; now they make of it a weapon against humiliation and despair; Mumbo-Jumbo and all the idols of the tribe come down among them, rule over their violence and waste it in trances until it in exhausted. At the same time these high-placed, personages protect them; in other words the colonized people protect themselves against colonial estrangement by going one better in religious estrangement, with the unique result that finally they add the two estrangements together and each reinforces the other. Thus in certain psychoses the hallucinated person, tired of always being insulted by his demon, one fine day starts hearing the voice of an angel who pays him compliments; but the jeers don’t stop for all that; only from then on, they alternate with congratulations. This is a defence, but it is also the end of the story; the self is disassociated, and the patient heads for madness. Let us add, for certain other carefully selected unfortunates, that other witchery of which I have already spoken: Western culture. If I were them, you may say, I'd prefer my mumbo-jumbo to their Acropolis. Very good: you’ve grasped the situation. But not altogether, because you aren’t them — or not yet. Otherwise you would know that they can’t choose; they must have both. Two worlds: that makes two bewitchings; they dance all night and at dawn they crowd into the churches to hear mass; each day the split widens. Our enemy betrays his brothers and becomes our accomplice; his brothers do the same thing. The status of ‘native’ is a nervous condition introduced and maintained by the settler among colonized people with their consent.

Laying claim to and denying the human condition at the same time: the contradiction is explosive. For that matter it does explode, you know as well as I do; and we are living at the moment when the match is put to the fuse. When the rising birthrate brings wider famine in its wake, when these newcomers have life to fear rather more than death, the torrent of violence sweeps away all barriers. In Algeria and Angola, Europeans are massacred at sight. It is the moment of the boomerang; it is the third phase of violence; it comes back on us, it strikes us, and we do not realize any more than we did the other times that it’s we that have launched it. The ‘liberals’ are stupefied; they admit that we were not polite enough to the natives, that it would have been wiser and fairer to allow them certain rights in so far as this was possible; they ask nothing better than to admit them in batches and without sponsors to that very exclusive club, our species; and now this barbarous, mad outburst doesn’t spare them any more than the bad settlers. The Left at home is embarrassed; they know the true situation of the natives, the merciless oppression they are submitted to; they do not condemn their revolt, knowing full well that we have done everything to provoke it. But, all the same, they think to themselves, there are limits; these guerrillas should be bent on showing that they are chivalrous; that would be the best way of showing they are men. Sometimes the Left scolds them ... ‘you’re going too far; we won’t support you any more.’ The natives don’t give a damn about their support; for all the good it does them they might as well stuff it up their backsides. Once their war began, they saw this hard truth: that every single one of us has made his bit, has got something out of them; they don’t need to call anyone to witness; they’ll grant favoured treatment to no one.

There is one duty to be done, one end to achieve: to thrust out colonialism by every means in their power. The more far-seeing among us will be, in the last resort, ready to admit this duty and this end; but we cannot help seeing in this ordeal by force the altogether inhuman means that these less-than-men make use of to win the concession of a charter of humanity. Accord it to them at once, then, and let them endeavour by peaceful undertakings to deserve it. Our worthiest souls contain racial prejudice.

They would do well to read Fanon; for he shows clearly that this irrepressible violence is neither sound and fury, nor the resurrection of savage instincts, nor even the effect of resentment: it is man re-creating himself. I think we understood this truth at one time, but we have forgotten it — that no gentleness can efface the marks of violence; only violence itself can destroy them. The native cures himself of colonial neurosis by thrusting out the settler through force of arms. When his rage boils over, he rediscovers his lost innocence and he comes to know himself in that he himself creates his self. Far removed from his war, we consider it as a triumph of barbarism; but of its own volition it achieves, slowly but surely, the emancipation of the rebel, for bit by bit it destroys in him and around him the colonial gloom. Once begun, it is a war that gives no quarter. You may fear or be feared; that is to say, abandon yourself to the disassociations of a sham existence or conquer your birthright of unity. When the peasant takes a gun in his hands, the old myths grow dim and the prohibitions are one by one forgotten. The rebel’s weapon is the proof of his humanity. For in the first days of the revolt you must kill: to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time: there remain a dead man, and a free man; the survivor, for the first time, feels a national soil under his foot. At this moment the Nation does not shrink from him; wherever he goes, wherever he may be, she is; she follows, and is never lost to view, for she is one with his liberty. But, after the first surprise, the colonial army strikes; and then all must unite or be slaughtered. Tribal dissensions weaken and tend to disappear; in the first place because they endanger the Revolution, but for the more profound reason that they served no other purpose before than to divert violence against false foes. When they remain — as in the Congo — it’s because they are kept up by the agents of colonialism. The Nation marches forward; for each of her children she is to be found wherever his brothers are fighting. Their feeling for each other is the reverse of the hatred they feel for you; they are brothers inasmuch as each of them has killed and may at any moment have to kill again. Fanon shows his readers the limits of ‘spontaneity’ and the need for and dangers of ‘organization’. But however great may be the task at each turning of the way the revolutionary consciousness deepens. The last complexes flee away; no one need come to us talking of the ‘dependency’ complex of an A.L.N. soldier.

With his blinkers off, the peasant takes account of his real needs; before they were enough to kill him, but he tried to ignore them; now he sees them as infinitely great requirements. In this violence which springs from the people, which enables them to hold out for five years — for eight years as the Algerians have done — the military, political and social necessities cannot be separated. The war, by merely setting the question of command and responsibility, institutes new structures which will become the first institutions of peace. Here, then, is man even now established in new traditions, the future children of a horrible present; here then we see him legitimized by a law which will be born or is born each day under fire: once the last settler a killed, shipped home or assimilated, the minority breed disappears, to be replaced by socialism. And that’s not enough; the rebel does not stop there; for you can be quite sure that he is not risking his skin to find himself at the level of a former inhabitant of the old mother country. Look how patient he is! Perhaps he dreams of another Dien Bien Phu, but don’t think he’s really counting on it; he’s a beggar fighting, in his poverty, against rich men powerfully armed. While he is waiting for decisive victories, or even without expecting them at all, he tires out his adversaries until they are sick of him.

It will not be without fearful losses; the colonial army becomes ferocious; the country is marked out, there are mopping-up operations, transfers of population, reprisal expeditions, and they massacre women and children. He knows this; this new man begins his life as a man at the end of it; he considers himself as a potential corpse. He will be killed; not only does he accept this risk, he’s sure of it. This potential dead man has lost his wife and his children; he has seen so many dying men that he prefers victory to survival; others, not he, will have the fruits of victory; he is too weary of it all. But this weariness of the heart is the root of an unbelievable courage. We find our humanity on this side of death and despair; he finds it beyond torture and death. We have sown the wind; he is the whirlwind. The child of violence, at every moment he draws from it his humanity. We were men at his expense, he makes himself man at ours: a different man; of higher quality.

Here Fanon stops. He has shown the way forward: he is the spokesman of those who are fighting and he has called for union, that is to say the unity of the African continent against all dissensions and all particularisms. He has gained his end. If he had wished to describe in all its details the historical phenomenon of decolonization he would have to have spoken of us; this is not at all his intention. But, when we have closed the book, the argument continues within us, in spite of its author; for we feel the strength of the peoples in revolt and we answer by force. Thus there is a fresh moment of violence; and this time we ourselves are involved, for by its nature this violence is changing us, accordingly as the ‘half-native’ is changed. Everyone of us must think for himself — always provided that he thinks at all; for in Europe today, stunned as she is by the blows received by France, Belgium or England, even to allow your mind to be diverted, however slightly, is as good as being the accomplice in crime of colonialism. This book has not the slightest need of a preface, all the less because it is not addressed to us. Yet I have written one, in order to bring the argument to its conclusion; for we in Europe too are being decolonized: that is to say that the settler which is in every one of us is being savagely rooted out. Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this _very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors.

You know well enough that we are exploiters. You know too that we have laid hands on first the gold and metals, then the petroleum of the ‘new continents’, and that we have brought them back to the old countries. This was not without excellent results, as witness our palaces, our cathedrals and our great industrial cities; and then when there was the threat of a slump, the colonial markets were there to soften the blow or to divert it. Crammed with riches, Europe accorded the human status de jure to its inhabitants. With us, to be a man is to be an accomplice of colonialism, since all of us without exception have profited by colonial exploitation. This fat, pale continent ends by falling into what Fanon rightly calls narcissism. Cocteau became irritated with Paris — ‘that city which talks about itself the whole time’. Is Europe any different? And that super-European monstrosity, North America? Chatter, chatter: liberty, equality, fraternity, love, honour, patriotism and what have you. All this did not prevent us from making anti-racial speeches about dirty niggers, dirty Jews and dirty Arabs. High-minded people, liberal or just soft-hearted, protest that they were shocked by such inconsistency; but they were either mistaken or dishonest, for with us there is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters. While there was a native population somewhere this imposture was not shown up; in the notion of the human race we found an abstract assumption of universality which served as cover for the most realistic practices. On the other side of the ocean there was a race of less-than-humans who, thanks to us, might reach our status a thousand years hence, perhaps; in short, we mistook the elite for the genus. Today, the native populations reveal their true nature, and at the same time our exclusive ‘club’ reveals its weakness — that it’s neither more nor less than a minority. Worse than that: since the others become men in name against us, it seems that we are the enemies of mankind; the élite shows itself in its true colours — it is nothing more than a gang. Our precious sets of values begin to moult; on closer scrutiny you won’t see one that isn’t stained with blood. If you are looking for an example, remember these fine words: ‘How generous France is!’ Us, generous? What about Sétif, then? And those eight years of ferocious war which have cost the lives of over a million Algerians? And the tortures?

But let it be understood that nobody reproaches us with having been false to such-and-such a mission — for the very good reason that we had no mission at all. It is generosity itself that’s in question; this fine melodious word has only one meaning: the granting of a statutory charter. For the folk across the water, new men, freed men, no one has the power nor the right to give anything to anybody; for each of them has every right, and the right to everything. And when one day our human kind becomes full-grown, it will not define itself as the sum total of the whole world’s inhabitants, but as the infinite unity of their mutual needs. Here I stop; you will have no trouble in finishing the job; all you have to do is to look our aristocratic virtues straight in the face, for the first and last time. They are cracking up; how could they survive the aristocracy of underlings who brought them into being? A few years ago, a bourgeois colonialist commentator found only this to say in defence of the West: ‘We aren’t angels. But we, at least, feel some remorse.’ What a confession! Formerly our continent was buoyed up by other means: the Parthenon, Chartres, the Rights of Man or the swastika. Now we know what these are worth; and the only chance of our being saved from, shipwreck is the very Christian sentiment of guilt. You can see it’s the end; Europe is springing leaks everywhere. What then has happened? It simply is that in the past we made history and now it is being made of us. The ratio of forces has been inverted; decolonization has begun; all that our hired soldiers can do is to delay its completion.

The old ‘mother countries’ have still to go the whole hog, still have to engage their entire forces in a battle which is lost before it has begun. At the end of the adventure we again find that colonial brutality which was Bugeaud’s doubtful but though it has been multiplied ten-fold, it’s still not enough. The national service units are sent to Algeria, and they remain there seven years with no result. Violence has changed its direction. When we were victorious we practised it without its seeming to alter us; it broke down the others, but for us men our humanism remained intact. United by their profits, the peoples of the mother countries baptized their commonwealth of crimes, calling them fraternity and love; today violence, blocked everywhere, comes back on us through our soldiers, comes inside and takes possession of us. Involution starts; the native re-creates himself, and we, settlers and Europeans, ultras and liberals we break up. Rage and fear are already blatant; they show themselves openly in the nigger-hunts in Algeria. Now, which side are the savages on? Where is barbarism? Nothing is missing, not even the tom-toms; the motor-horns beat out ‘Al-gér-ie fran-çaise’ while the Europeans burn Moslems alive. Fanon reminds us that not so very long ago, a congress of psychiatrists was distressed by the criminal propensities of the native population. ‘Those people kill each other,’ they said, ‘that isn’t normal. The Algerian’s cortex must be under-developed.’ In central Africa, others have established that ‘the African makes very little use of his frontal lobes’. These learned men would do well today to follow up their investigations in Europe, and particularly with regard to the French. For we, too, during the last few years, must be victims of ‘frontal sluggishness’ since our patriots do quite a bit of assassinating of their fellow-countrymen and if they’re not at home, they blow up their house and their concierge. This is only a beginning; civil war is forecast for the autumn, or for the spring of next year. Yet our lobes seem to be in perfect condition; is it not rather the case that, since we cannot crush the natives, violence comes back on its tracks, accumulates in the very depths of our nature and seeks a way out? The union of the Algerian people causes the disunion of the French people; throughout the whole territory of the ex-mother-country, the tribes are dancing their war-dances. The terror has left Africa, and is settling here; for quite obviously there are certain furious beings who want to make us Pay with our own blood for the shame of having been beaten by the native. Then too, there are the others, all the others who are equally guilty (for after Bizerta, after the lynchings of September, who among them came out into the streets to shout ‘We've had enough'?) but less spectacular — the liberals, and the toughs of the tender Left.

The fever is mounting amongst them too, and resentment at the same time. And they certainly have the wind up! They hide their rage in myths and complicated rites; in order to stave off the day of reckoning and the need for decision they have put at the head of our affairs a Grand Magician whose business it is to keep us all in the dark at all costs. Nothing is being done; violence, proclaimed by some, disowned by others, turns in a vacuum; one day it bursts out at Metz, the next at Bordeaux; it’s here, there and everywhere, like in a game of hunt the slipper. It’s our turn to tread the path, step by step, which leads down to native level. But to become natives altogether, our soil must be occupied by a formerly colonized people and we must starve of hunger. This won’t happen; for it’s a discredited colonialism which is taking hold on us; this is the senile, arrogant master who will straddle us; here he comes, our mumbo-jumbo.

And when you have read Fanon’s last chapter, you will be convinced that it would be better for you to be a native at the uttermost depths of his misery than to be a former settler. It is not right for a police official to be obliged to torture for ten hours a day; at that rate, his nerves will fall to bits, unless the torturers are forbidden in their own interests to work overtime. When it is desirable that the morality of the Nation and the Army should be protected by the rigours of the law, it is not right that the former should systematically demoralize the latter, nor that a country with a Republican tradition should confide hundreds and thousands of its young folk to the care of putschist officers. It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name, it’s not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgement on yourself. I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues. Eight years of silence; what degradation! And your silence is all of no avail; today, the blinding sun of torture is at its zenith; it lights up the whole country. Under that merciless glare, there is not a laugh that does not ring false, not a face that is not painted to hide fear or anger, not a single action that does hot betray our disgust, and our complicity. It is enough today for two French people to meet together for there to be a dead man between them. One dead man did I say? In other days France was the name of a country. We should take care that in 1961 it does not become the name of a nervous disease.

Will we recover? Yes. For violence, like Achilles’ lance, can heal the wounds that it has inflicted. Today, we are bound hand and foot, humiliated and sick with fear; we cannot fall lower. Happily this is not yet enough for the colonialist aristocracy; it cannot complete its delaying mission in Algeria until it has first finished colonizing the French. Every day we retreat in front of the battle, but you may be sure that we will not avoid it; the killers need it; they’ll go for us and hit out blindly to left and right.

Thus the day of magicians and fetishes will end; you will have to fight, or rot in concentration camps. This is the end of the dialectic; you condemn this war but do not yet dare to declare yourselves to be on the side of the Algerian fighters; never fear, you can count on the settlers and the hired soldiers; they’ll make you take the plunge. Then, perhaps, when your back is to the wall, you will let loose at last that new violence which is raised up in you by old, oft-repeated crimes. But, as they say, that’s another story: the history of mankind. The time is drawing near, I am sure, when we will join the ranks of those who make it.

Jean-Paul Sartre

1961

Paris

My Father Sits in the Dark by Jerome Weidman

My father has a peculiar habit. He is fond of sitting in the dark, alone. Sometimes I come home very late. The house is dark. I let myself in quietly because I do not want to disturb my mother. She is a light sleeper. I tiptoe into my room and undress in the dark. I go to the kitchen for a drink of water. My bare feet make no noise. I step into the room and almost trip over my father. He is sitting in a kitchen chair, in his pyjamas, smoking his pipe.
'Hello, Pop,' I say.
'Hello son.'
'Why don't you go to bed, Pa?'
'I will,' he says.
But he remains there. Long after I am asleep I feel sure that he is still sitting there, smoking.
Many times I am reading in my room. I hear my mother get the house ready for the night. I hear my kid brother go to bed. I hear my sister come in. I hear her do things with jars and combs until she, too, is quiet. I know she has gone to sleep. In a little while I hear my mother say goodnight to my father. I continue to read. Soon I become thirsty. ( I drink a lot of water.) I go to the kitchen for a drink. Again I almost stumble across my father. Many times it startles me. I forget about him. And there he is - smoking, sitting, thinking.
'Why don't you go to bed, Pop?'
'I will soon, son.'
But he doesn't. He just sits there and smokes and thinks. It worries me. I can't understand it. What can he be thinking about? Once I asked him.
'What are you thinking about, Pa?'
'Nothing,' he said.
Once I left him there and went to bed. I awoke several hours later. I was thirsty. I went to the kitchen. There he was. His pipe was out. But he sat there, staring into a corner of the kitchen. After a moment I became accustomed to the darkness. I took my drink. He still sat and stared. His eyes did not blink. I thought he was not even aware of me. I was afraid.
'Why don't you go to bed, Pop?' 'I will, son,' he said. 'Don't wait up for me.' 'But,' I said, 'you've been sitting here for hours. What's wrong?
What are you thinking about?'
'Nothing, son,' he said. 'Nothing.
It's just restful. That's all.'
The way he said it was convincing. He did not seem worried. His voice was even and pleasant. It always is. But I could not understand it. How could it be restful to sit alone in an uncomfortable chair far into the night in darkness? What can it be?
I review all the possibilities. It can't be money. I know that. We haven't much, but when he is worried about money he makes no secret of it. It can't be his health.
He is not reticent about that either. It can't be the health of anyone in the family. We are a bit short on money, but we are long on health. (Knock wood, my mother would say.) What can it be? I am afraid I do not know. but that does not stop me from worrying. Maybe he is thinking of his brothers in the old country. Or of his mother and two step mothers. Or of his father. but they are all dead. And he would not brood about them like that. I say brood, but it is not really true. He does not brood. He does not even seem to be thinking. He looks to peaceful, too, well not contented, just too peaceful, to be brooding.
Perhaps it is as he says. Perhaps it is restful. But it does not seem possible. It worries me.
If only I knew what he thinks about. If I only knew that he thinks at all. I might not be able to help him. He might not even need help. It may be as he says. It may be restful.
But at least I would not worry about it.
Why does he just sit there, in the dark? Is his mind failing? No, it can't be. He is only fifty-three. And he is just as keen-witted as ever. In fact, he is the same in every respect. He still likes beet soup. He still reads the second section of the Times first. He still wears wing collars. He still believes that Debs could have saved the contry and that T.R. was a tool of moneyed interests. He is the same in every way. He does not even look older than he did five years ago. Everybody remarks about that.
Well-preserved, they say. But he sits in the dark, alone, smoking, staring straight ahead of him, unflinking, into the small hours of the night.
If it is as he says, if it is restful, I will let it go at that. But suppose it is not. Suppose it is something I cannot fathom. Perhaps he needs help. Why doesn't he speak? Why doesn't he frown or laugh or cry? Why doesn't he do something? Why does he just sit there? Finally I become angry. Maybe it is just my unsatisfied curiousity. Maybe I am a bit worried. Anyway, I become angry.
'Is something wrong, Pop?' 'Nothing, son. Nothing at all.'
But this time I am determined not to be put off. I am angry.
'Then why do you sit here all alone, thinking, till late?'
'It's restful, son. I like it.'
I am getting nowhere. Tomorrow he will be sitting there again. I will be puzzled. I will be worried. I will not stop now. I am angry.
'Well, what do you think about, Pa? Why do you just sit here?' What's worrying you? What do you think about?' 'Nothing's worrying me, son. I'm all right.
It's just restful. That's all. Go to bed, son.
My anger has left me. But the feeling of worry is still there. I must get an answer. It seems so silly. Why doesn't he tell me? I have a funny feeling that unless I get an answer I will go crazy. I am insistent.
'But what do you think about . Pa? What is it? 'Nothing, son. Just things in general.
Nothing special. Just things.' I can get no answer.
It is very late. The street is quiet and the house is dark. I climb the steps softly, skipping the ones that creak. I let myself in with my key and tiptoe to my room. I remove my clothes and remember that I am thirsty.
In my bare feet I walk to the kitchen. Before I reach it I know he is there.
I can see the deeper darkness of his hunched shape. He is sitting in the same chair, his elbows on his knees, his cold pipe in his teeth, his unblinking eyes staring straight ahead. He does not seem to know I am there.
He did not hear me come in. I stand quietly in the doorway and watch him.
Everything is quiet, but the night is full of little sounds. As I s stand there motionless I began to notice them. The ticking of the alarm clock on the icebox. The low hum of an automobile passing many blocks away. The swish of papers moved along the street by the breeze. A whispering rise and fall of sound, like low breathing.
It is strangely pleasant.
The dryness in my throat reminds me. I step briskly into the kitchen.
'Hello, Pop.'
'Hello, son.' he says. His voice is low and dreamlike.
He does not change his position or shift his gaze.
I cannot find the faucet. The dim shadow of light that comes through the window from the street lamp only makes the room seem darker. I reach for the short chain in the centre of the room. I snap on the light.
He straightens up with a jerk, as though he has been struck.
'What's the matter, Pop?' I ask. 'Nothing,' he says. 'I don't like the light.'
'What's the matter with the light?' I say.
'What's wrong?' 'Nothing,' he says.
'I don't like the light.'
I snap the light off. I drink my water slowly. I must take it easy, I say to myself. I must get to the bottom of this.
'Why don't you go to bed? Why do you sit here so late in the dark?' 'It's nice,' he says. 'I can't get used to the lights. We didn't have lights when I was a boy in Europe.'
My heart skips a beat and I catch my breath happily. I begin to think I understand. I remember the stories of his boyhood in Austria. I see the wide-beamed kretchma (inn), with my grandfather behind the bar. It is late, the customers are gone, and he is dozing. I see a bed of glowing coals, the last of a roaring fire.
The room is already dark, and growing darker. I see a small boy, crouched on a pile of twigs at one side of the huge fireplace, his starry gaze fixed on the dull remains of the dead flames.
The boy is my father. I remember the pleasure of those few moments while I stood quietly in the doorway watching him.
'You mean there's nothing wrong? You just sit in the dark because you like it, Pap?' I find it hard to keep my voice from rising to a happy shout. 'Sure,' he says. 'I can't think with the light on.' I set my glass down and turn to go back to my room.
'Good night, Pop,' I say.
'Good night, ' he says.
Then I remember. I turn back. 'What do you think about, Pop?' I ask.
His voice seems to come from far away. It is quiet and even again. 'Nothing,' he said softly. 'Nothing special.'
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