The following is an extract from That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. Having received a quote from the book in my inbox, and written about it, I decided to give the whole book a read, since it has been a long time since I read it. As I came across the following section I gasped. I could not believe it. I read it aloud to my wife and nor could she. The protagonist, Mark Studdock has found out that his colleagues at N.I.C.E are creating disturbances in the little town of Edgestow and are aiming at a serious disturbance in the next week. Over to C.S. Lewis.
Excerpt from That Hideous Strength
“You mean you’ve engineered the disturbances?” said Mark. To do him justice, his mind was reeling from this new revelation. Nor was he aware of any decision to conceal his state of mind: in the snugness and intimacy of that circle he found his facial muscles and his voice, without any conscious volition, taking on the tone of his colleagues.
“That’s a crude way of putting it,” said Feverstone.
“It makes no difference,” said Filostrato. “This is how things have to be managed.”
“Quite,” said Miss Hardcastle. “It’s always done. Anyone who knows police work will tell you. And as I say, the real thing—the big riot—must take place within the next forty-eight hours.”
“It’s nice to get the tip straight from the horse’s mouth!” said Mark. “I wish I’d got my wife out of the town, though.”
“Where does she live?” said the Fairy.
“Up at Sandown.”
“Ah. It’ll hardly affect her. In the meantime, you and I have got to get busy about the account of the riot.”
“But—what’s it all for?”
“Emergency regulations,” said Feverstone. “You’ll never get the powers we want at Edgestow until the Government declares that a state of emergency exists there.”
“Exactly,” said Filostrato. “It is folly to talk of peaceful revolutions. Not that the canaglia would always resist—often they have to be prodded into it—but until there is the disturbance, the firing, the barricades—no one gets powers to act effectively. There is not enough what you call weigh on the boat to steer him.”
“And the stuff must be all ready to appear in the papers the very day after the riot,” said Miss Hardcastle. “That means it must be handed in to the D.D. by six to-morrow morning at latest.”
“But how are we to write it to-night if the thing doesn’t even happen till to-morrow at the earliest?”
Everyone burst out laughing.
“You’ll never manage publicity that way, Mark,” said Feverstone. “You surely don’t need to wait for a thing to happen before you tell the story of it!”
“Well, I admit,” said Mark, and his face also was full of laughter, “I had a faint prejudice for doing so, not living in Mr. Dunne’s sort of time nor in looking-glass land.”
“No good, sonny,” said Miss Hardcastle. “We’ve got to get on with it at once. Time for one more drink and you and I’d better go upstairs and begin. We’ll get them to give us devilled bones and coffee at two.”
This was the first thing Mark had been asked to do which he himself, before he did it, clearly knew to be criminal. But the moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world’s history when such moments fully revealed their gravity, with witches prophesying on a blasted heath or visible Rubicons to be crossed. But, for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter between fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men.
