The Children of Men

by P.D. James

“Perhaps if a few people, a group of friends, got themselves exiled to the island deliberately, they could do something to change things. Or if we offered to go there voluntarily, why should the Warden forbid us, why should he care? Even a small group could help if they arrived in love.” Theo could hear the contempt in his voice. “Holding up the Cross of Christ before the savages, as the missionaries did in South America. Like them, get yourselves butchered on the beaches? Don’t you read any history? There are only two reasons for that kind of folly. One is that you have a yearning for martyrdom. There’s nothing new in that, if it’s the way your religion takes you. I’ve always seen it as an unhealthy mixture of masochism and sensuality but I can see its appeal to a certain cast of mind. What is new is that your martyrdom won’t even be commemorated, won’t even be noticed. In seventy-odd years it will have no possible value because there will be no one left on earth to give it value, no one even to put up a small wayside shrine to the new Oxford martyrs. The second reason is more ignoble and Xan would understand it very well. If you did succeed, what an intoxication of power! The Isle of Man pacified, the violent living in peace, crops sown and harvested, the sick cared for, Sunday services in the churches, the redeemed kissing the hands of the living saint who made it all possible. Then you’ll know what the Warden of England feels every waking moment, what he enjoys, what h...