life, of forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings we force
according to certain ideas. We drive ourselves with a formula, like a
machine. The logical mind pretends to rule the roost, and the roost turns
into pure hate. We're all Bolshevists, only we are hypocrites. The Russians
are Bolshevists without hypocrisy.'
`But there are many other ways,' said Hammond, `than the Soviet way.
The Bolshevists aren't really intelligent.'
`Of course not. But sometimes it's intelligent to be half-witted: if
you want to make your end. Personally, I consider Bolshevism half-witted;
but so do I consider our social life in the west half-witted. So I even
consider our far-famed mental life half-witted. We're all as cold as
cretins, we're all as passionless as idiots. We're all of us Bolshevists,
only we give it another name. We think we're gods...men like gods! It's just
the same as Bolshevism. One has to be human, and have a heart and a penis if
one is going to escape being either a god or a Bolshevist...for they are the
same thing: they're both too good to be true.'
Out of the disapproving silence came Berry's anxious question:
`You do believe in love then, Tommy, don't you?'
`You lovely lad!' said Tommy. `No, my cherub, nine times out of ten,
no! Love's another of those half-witted performances today. Fellows with
swaying waists fucking little jazz girls with small boy buttocks, like two
collar studs! Do you mean that sort of love? Or the joint-property,
make-a-success-of-it, My-husband-my-wife sort of love? No, my fine fellow, I
don't believe in it at all!'
`But you do believe in something?'
`Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy
penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say "shit!" in front of a
lady.'
`Well, you've got them all,' said Berry.
Tommy Dukes roared with laughter. `You angel boy! If only I had! If
only I had! No; my heart's as numb as a potato, my penis droops and never
lifts its head up, I dare rather cut him clean off than say "shit!" in front
of my mother or my aunt...they are real ladies, mind you; and I'm not really
intelligent, I'm only a "mental-lifer". It would be wonderful to be
intelligent: then one would be alive in all the parts mentioned and
unmentionable. The penis rouses his head and says: How do you do?---to any
really intelligent person. Renoir said he painted his pictures with his
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