Reality’s ambivalence makes Hamlets—cowards, say Hamlet and Hitler, who burned Hamlet—of us all. Hitler cut all the knots that freemen fumble with. He did not resolve the problems that immobilized his people; he smashed them. He was the grand romantic. I asked my friend Simon, the “democratic” bill-collector, what he liked best about Hitler. “Ah,” he said at once, “his ‘So—oder so,’ his ‘Whatever I have to do to have my way, I will have my way.’”
