34.

But now all of this was gone. He was back where he'd always been--that nest from which he dreamed his dreams, to which he always returned--that cell, that concrete cell he shared with Michael. Michael was talking to himself again, and presently he suspected that what all these dream figures were saying were really Michael's voice represented to him through various characters, some of Michael's ideas amplified, distorted, obscured as Joshua's dreaming inner psychology may dictate. But no--Michael was bitter, a madman--no wisdom could come from him; he'd said to the whole world of ideas, "Fuck off," and he really believed nothing of what he said.

Michael was sitting cross legged with his torso bent over now, holding his naked gray gut in his forearms, each hand gripping his bare ribbed flank on its opposite side.

"They were right to kill Socrates," he was saying. "America. Freedom of speech. Free exchange of ideas. Ha! That's poison to a society, any society. When a people all think alike, speak with a common voice, of a common opinion--they are viable, strong, healthy. But when what any old fellow thinks is allowed to spread throughout the mental system of the whole--to lead to new innovations, novelties--when a social system lets each of its cells think for itself--that is when it is weak, scattered. Its death will come with the freedom of its parts. Could a man live if each of his cells, if every organ could do as it pleased? No--a society that does not keep the thought and mental life of its people on a short tether--that society will die off. Nothing is even needed to kill it--it will disintegrate and decompose of its own. America. The land of the free. It's amazing it hasn't yet disintegrated--and unless its ideas, beliefs are controlled--it won't live another twenty years. When we all believe we are free, it's the same to us whether we are or not. The trick is to make us believe we are free--but to make certain that this freedom is mere illusion. That and that alone is the reason America has survived up till now."

"Did you say something earlier about languages?" asked Joshua.

Michael slowly lifted his head and looked to him. His face somehow reminded Joshua of the fat yellow disk of a full moon. There was a certain innocence in his gaze, innocent like a moon's face that knows nothing of blood, sex, or foul bodily functions--just pure moon, pure clean rock, sterile. Somehow, it seemed to him that this was all there was in the world--purity, sanctity--that the foulest bodily function was not foul at all, that it only appeared that way according to the human illusion. No, not even rape and murder could be foul, except under the delusion to which all men are prone.

"Don't listen to me," Michael said. "Don't believe a word I say. It's all nonsense and lies, and ideas for the sake of trying ideas--there is no final truth people's words can land into. If there were, well, someone would have discovered it a thousand years ago, and no one would have thenceforth believed anything different."