If you don't believe it go down there to the camp.
Don't you know it is wrong to kill?
Yes.
But you do it?
Yes.
And you still believe absolutely that your cause is right?
Yes.
It is right, he told himself, not reassuringly, but proudly.
I believe in the people and their right to govern themselves as they wish.
But you mustn't believe in killing, he told himself.
You must do it as a necessity but you must not believe in it.
If you believe in it the whole thing is wrong.
But how many do you suppose you have killed?
I don't know because I won't keep track.
But do you know?
Yes.
How many?
You can't be sure how many.
Blowing the trains you kill many.
Very many.
But you can't be sure.
But of those you are sure of?
More than twenty.
And of those how many were real fascists?
Two that I am sure of.
Because I had to shoot them when we took them prisoners at Usera.
And you did not mind that?
No.
Nor did you like it?
No.
I decided never to do it again.
I have avoided it.
I have avoided killing those who are unarmed.
Listen, he told himself.
You better cut this out.
This is very bad for you and for your work.
Then himself said back to him, You listen, see?
Because you are doing something very serious and I have to see you understand it all the time.
I have to keep you straight in your head.
Because if you are not absolutely straight in your head you have no right to do the things you do for all of them are crimes and no man has a right to take another man's life unless it is to prevent something worse happening to other people.
So get it straight and do not lie to yourself.
But I won't keep a count of people I have killed as though it were a trophy record or a disgusting business like notches in a gun, he told himself.
I have a right to not keep count and I have a right to forget them.
No, himself said.
You have no right to forget anything.
You have no right to shut your eyes to any of it nor any right to forget any of it nor to soften it nor to change it.
Shut up, he told himself.
You're getting awfully pompous.
Nor ever to deceive yourself about it, himself went on.
All right, he told himself.