Barres shrugged and turned to the very engaging lady beside him:
“What do you think of that breed of human, doctor?” he inquired.
She smiled at Barres and said:
“Several of my own patients who are suffering from the same form of psycho-neurotic trouble are also peace-at-any-price pacifists. They do not come to me to be cured of their pacifism. On the contrary, they cherish it most tenderly. In examining them for other troubles I happened upon what appeared to me a very close relation between the peculiar attitude of the peace-at-any-price pacifist and a certain type of unconscious pervert.”
“That passivism is perversion does not surprise me,” remarked Barres.
“Well,” she said, “the pacifist is not conscious of his real desires and therefore cannot be termed a true pervert. But the very term, passivism, is usually significant and goes very deep psychologically. In analysing my patients I struck against a buried impulse in them to suffer tyrannous treatment from an omnipotent master. The impulse was so strong that it amounted to a craving and tried to absorb all the psychic material within its reach. They did not recognise 378 the original impulse, because that had long ago been crushed down by the exactions of civilised life. Nevertheless, they were tortured and teased, made unsettled and wretched by a something which continually baffled them. Deep under the upper crust of their personalities was concealed a seething desire to be completely, inevitably, relentlessly, unreservedly overwhelmed by a subjugation from which there was no escape.”
She turned to Westmore:
“It’s purely pathological, the condition of those two self-confessed pacifists. The pacifist loves suffering. The ordinary normal person avoids suffering when possible. He endures it only when something necessary or desirable cannot be gained in any other way. He may undergo agony at the mere thought of it. His bravery consists in facing danger and pain in spite of fear. But the extreme passivist, who is really an unconscious pervert, loves to dream of martyrdom and suffering. It must be a suffering, however, which is forced upon him, and it must be a personal matter, not impersonal and general, as in war. And he loves to contemplate a condition of complete captivity—of irresponsible passivity, in which all resistance is in vain.”
“Do you know, they disgust me, those two!” said Westmore angrily. “I never could endure anything abnormal. And now that I know Esmé is—and that big lout, Mandel—I’ll keep away from them. Do you blame me, doctor?”
“Well,” she said, much amused and turning to go, “they’re very interesting to physicians, you know—these non-resisting, pacifistic perverts. But outside a sanatorium I shouldn’t expect them to be very popular.” And she laughed and joined a big, good-looking 379 man who had come to seek her, and who wore, in his buttonhole, the button of the French Legion of Honour.