Another Country

by James Baldwin

Most people had not lived—nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died—through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain.

Only time might help, time which surrendered all secrets but only on the inexorable condition, as far as he could tell, that the secret could no longer be used.

The trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters.

They had long ago given up saying anything which they really felt, had given it up so long ago that they were now incapable of feeling anything which was not felt by a mob.

For all policemen were bright enough to know who they were working for, and they were not working, anywhere in the world, for the powerless.

It was a city without oases, run entirely, insofar, at least, as human perception could tell, for money; and its citizens seemed to have lost entirely any sense of their right to renew themselves.

Some days, honey, I wish I could turn myself into one big fist and grind this miserable country to powder. Some days, I don’t believe it has a right to exist.

“Well,” said Eric, slowly, “he has been wounded. You haven’t got to be—admirable—in order to feel pain.” “No. But I think that perhaps you can begin to become admirable if, when you’re hurt, you don’t try to pay back.”

“I’m beginning to think,” she said, “that growing just means learning more and more about anguish. That poison becomes your diet—you drink a little of it every day. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t stop seeing it—that’s the trouble. And it can, it can”—she passed her hand wearily over her brow again—“drive you mad.” She walked away briefly, then returned to their corner. “You begin to see that you yourself, innocent, upright you, have contributed and do contribute to the misery of the world. Which will never end because we’re what we are.”

She touched her heart. “This isn’t a country at all, it’s a collection of football players and Eagle Scouts. Cowards. We think we’re happy. We’re not. We’re doomed.”