Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1401

Faced with a gesture like Di Bosis', I find usually that my sentiments are closer to those of my sculptor friend.

The things that happened in police station basements were dirty, grubby, and most often anonymous.

No poetry, no airplanes, no dancers.

That is how the real routine of resistance goes on, and its strength is directly proportionate to the number of insignificant people who can let themselves be taken to pieces, piece by piece, without quitting.

It is an ugly business and there are few, if any, wreaths for them.

I keep thinking of a young woman I knew during the Occupation in Austria.

She was from Prague.

She had been picked up by the Russians, questioned in connection with some pamphlets, sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage.

She escaped, crawled through the usual mine fields, under barbed wire, was shot at, swam a river, and we finally picked her up in Linz.

She showed us what had happened to her.

No airplanes, no Nathan Hale statements.

Just no spot, not even a dimesize spot, on her whole body that wasn't bruised, bruise on top of bruise, from beatings.

I understand very well about Lauro Di Bosis and how his action is symbolic.

The trouble is that like many symbols it doesn't seem a very realistic one.