Resurrection Blues by Arthur Miller Page B

desperately poor peasant—he is the liberator; for the General his crucifixion will powerfully reinforce good order, so he must exist . . . and I know a suicidal young woman of high intelligence who insists that he has restored her will to live, so for her he certainly exists. And needless to say, for you, of course . . . his execution will sell some very expensive advertising, so you are committed to his existing.
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    SKIP: But he can’t be imaginary, the General spoke with him.
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    HENRI: Not quite. According to the General the fellow never said a single word. Not one. The General spoke at him.
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    SKIP: But didn’t I hear of this . . . apostle of his they’ve just jailed? He’s certainly spoken with him.
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    HENRI: A fellow named Stanley, yes. I understand he is a drug addict. I needn’t say more; he could be put away for the rest of his life unless he cooperates. Drug-taking is a felony in this country.
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    SKIP: Really. But they export tons of it.
    HENRI: They do indeed. The logic is as implacable as it is beyond anyone’s comprehension.
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    SKIP: Then what are you telling me?—Because you’ve gotta believe it, the money we paid the General is not a poem.
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    HENRI: But it may turn into one as so many other important things have done. The Vietnam War, for example, began . . .
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    SKIP: The Vietnam War!
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    HENRI: . . . Which was set off, mind you, by a night attack upon a United States warship by a Vietnamese gunboat in the Gulf of Tonkin. It’s now quite certain the attack never happened. This was a fiction, a poem; but fifty-six thousand Americans and two million Vietnamese had to die before the two sides got fed up reciting it.
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    SKIP: But what is this light . . . not that I’m sure I believe it . . . but he emits a light, I’m told.
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    HENRI: Yes. I saw it.
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    SKIP: You saw it!
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    HENRI: At the time I thought I did, yes. But I was primed beforehand by my two days in the upper villages where everyone is absolutely convinced he is god—so as I approached that cell door my brain demanded an astonishment and I believe I proceeded to create one.
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    SKIP: Meaning what?
    HENRI: Mr. Cheeseboro, I have spent a lifetime trying to free myself from the boredom of reality.—Needless to say, I have badly hurt some people dear to me—as those who flee reality usually do. So what I am about to tell you has cost me.—I am convinced now apart from getting fed, most human activity—sports, opera, TV, movies, dressing up, dressing down—or just going for a walk—has no other purpose than to deliver us into the realm of the imagination. The imagination is a great hall where death, for example, turns into a painting, and a scream of pain becomes a song. The hall of the imagination is really where we usually live; and this is all right except for one thing—to enter that hall one must leave one’s real sorrow at the door and in its stead surround oneself with images and words and music that mimic anguish but are really drained of it—no one has ever lost a leg from reading about a battle, or died of hearing the saddest song. Close to tears . And this is why . . .
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    SKIP: I don’t see why . . .
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    HENRI, overriding: . . . This is why this man must be hunted down and crucified; because— he still really feels everything . Imagine, Mr. Cheeseboro, if that kind of reverence for life should spread! Governments would collapse, armies disband, marriages disintegrate! Wherever we turned, our dead unfeeling shallowness would stare us in the face until we shriveled up with shame! No!—better to hunt him down and kill him and leave us in peace.
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    SKIP: . . . You’re addressing me, aren’t you.
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    HENRI: Oh, and myself, I assure you a thousand, thousand times myself.
    SKIP: On the other hand, shallow as I am I have twins registered at Andover; maybe some need to be shallow so that