Page 55 - lady-chatterlys-lover

of the premisses,’ said Hammond.
’My dear man, it allows the material premiss; so does the
pure mind...exclusively.’
’At least Bolshevism has got down to rock bottom,’ said
Charlie.
’Rock bottom! The bottom that has no bottom! The Bol-
shevists will have the finest army in the world in a very
short time, with the finest mechanical equipment.
’But this thing can’t go on...this hate business. There must
be a reaction...’ said Hammond.
’Well, we’ve been waiting for years...we wait longer.
Hate’s a growing thing like anything else. It’s the inevitable
outcome of forcing ideas on to life, of forcing one’s deepest
instincts; our deepest feelings we force according to certain
ideas. We drive ourselves with a formula, like a machine.
The logical mind pretends to rule the roost, and the roost
turns into pure hate. We’re all Bolshevists, only we are hyp-
ocrites. The Russians are Bolshevists without hypocrisy.’
’But there are many other ways,’ said Hammond, ‘than
the Soviet way. The Bolshevists aren’t really intelligent.’
’Of course not. But sometimes it’s intelligent to be half-
witted: if you want to make your end. Personally, I consider
Bolshevism half-witted; but so do I consider our social life
in the west half-witted. So I even consider our far-famed
mental life half-witted. We’re all as cold as cretins, we’re all
as passionless as idiots. We’re all of us Bolshevists, only we
give it another name. We think we’re gods...men like gods!
It’s just the same as Bolshevism. One has to be human, and
have a heart and a penis if one is going to escape being either

Lady Chatterly’s Lover