Lipton’s Journal/December 31, 1954/157: Difference between revisions

The collar of this is the Stalinist who in the better forms is a man with a soul which feels acutely the outrages of society. But the good Stalinist like Charlie Devlin{{LJ:Devlin}} cannot make the full repudiation of the world, it is too terrifying, and so he takes the half-repudiation of Stalinism, with all its frightful restraints and smothering, because he is terrified that to relinquish the world completely is to mean madness. And this is society’s last weapon, the one which indeed is working on me now. For the first time in my life I have come to realize that I, too, could go mad or commit suicide. I do not really believe it, I spend most of my hours in ebullience and enormous inner excitement, but there are moments at night when I am simply, soulfully happy that Adele is there, and that she understands me, and I can turn to her, and say, “Baby, I’m scared.”