The first person to speak was the president of the republic, Gentlemen, he said, in my opinion, and as I think we would all agree, we are living through the most difficult and complex moment since the first election revealed the existence of a vast subversive movement hitherto undetected by the security services, not that we were the ones to make the discovery, for it chose, instead, to reveal itself, the interior minister, whose actions have otherwise always had my personal and institutional support, will, I am sure, agree with me when I say that the worst thing is that we have not, up until now, taken a single effective step toward solving the problem, and, perhaps graver still, we have been forced to watch, powerless, the rebels' brilliant tactic of helping our voters to move all their useless junk back into their apartments, that, gentlemen, could only be the brainchild of some machiavellian mastermind, someone who remains hidden behind the curtain and makes the puppets do exactly as he wants, we all know that we sent those people back out of sheer painful necessity, but now we must prepare ourselves for a more than likely chain reaction that will lead to new escape attempts, not this time of whole families, nor of spectacular convoys of cars, but of isolated individuals or small groups, and not by road, but across country, the minister of defense will assure me that these areas are regularly patrolled, that there are electronic sensors installed all along the frontier, and I could not bring myself to doubt the efficacy of such measures, however, in my view, complete containment can only be achieved by the construction of a wall around the capital, an impassable wall made out of concrete slabs, and, I would say, about eight meters high, using, of course, the system of electronic sensors already in existence and backed up by as many barbed-wire fences as are judged to be necessary, I am firmly convinced that no one would manage to get past that, not even, I would say, a fly, if you'll allow me my little joke, but not so much because flies couldn't get through it, as because, as far as one can judge from their normal behavior, they have no reason to fly that high. The president of the republic paused to clear his throat and ended by saying, The prime minister already knows about this proposal of mine and, shortly, he will doubtless submit it for discussion by the government, who will then, as is their duty, decide upon the appropriateness and practicability of carrying it out, as for me, I am content in the knowledge that you will bring all your experience to bear on the matter. A diplomatic murmur went round the table, which the president of the republic interpreted as one of tacit approval, an idea he would have had to correct had he heard the minister of finance's muttered remark, And where would we find the money for a crazy scheme like that.
Having shuffled the documents in front of him from one side to the other, as was his custom, the prime minister was the next to speak, The president of the republic, with the brilliance and rigor we have come to expect, has just given us a clear picture of the difficult and complex situation in which we find ourselves, and there is, therefore, no point in my adding to his exposition any details of my own, which would, after all, serve only to lend further shading to his original sketch, however, having said that, and in view of recent events, I believe that what we need is a radical change of strategy, which would pay special attention, along with all the other factors, to the possibility of the birth and growth in the capital of an atmosphere of social harmony purely as a consequence of this gesture of unequivocal solidarity, doubtless machiavellian, doubtless politically motivated, to which the whole country has borne witness in the last few hours, you have only to read the unanimously complimentary comments in the special editions brought out by the newspapers, consequently, we have no option but to recognize that all our attempts to make the rebels listen to reason have, each and every one, been a resounding failure, and that the cause of that failure, at least in my opinion, could well have been the severity of the repressive measures we chose to use, and secondly, if we continue with the strategy we have followed up until now, if we continue with the escalation of coercive methods, and if the response of the rebels also continues to be what it has been up until now, which is to say no response at all, we will be forced to resort to drastic measures of a dictatorial nature, such as the indefinite withdrawal of civil rights from the city's population, which, to avoid ideological favoritism, would have to include our own voters too, or, with the aim of preventing the spread of the epidemic, the passing of an emergency electoral law that would apply to the whole country and would make blank votes void, and so on. The prime minister paused to take a sip of water, then went on, I spoke of the need for a change of strategy, however, I did not say that I had such a strategy drawn up and prepared for immediate implementation, we need to bide our time, to allow the fruit to ripen and for brave resolutions to rot, I must confess that I myself would actually prefer a period of slight relaxation during which we could work to gain as much advantage as possible from the few signs of concord that seem to be emerging. He paused again and seemed to be about to continue speaking, but then said only, Now let me hear your opinions.
The interior minister raised his hand, I notice that you are confident of the persuasive influence our voters may have on the minds of those to whom I must confess I was somewhat astonished to hear you refer merely as rebels, but you did not, I believe, speak of the contrary possibility, that the subversives might use their harmful theories to confuse those citizens who are still respecters of the law, You're quite right, I don't think I did mention that possibility, said the prime minister in response, because I imagined that were that to happen, it would not bring about any fundamental change, the worst possible consequence would be that the current eighty percent of people who cast blank votes would become one hundred percent, and the quantitative change introduced into the problem would have no qualitative impact, apart, obviously, from creating unanimity. What shall we do then, asked the minister of defense, That is precisely why we are here, to analyze, consider and decide, Including, I assume, the proposal made by the president of the republic, which, of course, has my wholehearted support, The president's proposal, given the scale of the work involved and its many implications, requires an in-depth study to be undertaken by an ad hoc commission that will have to be set up for that purpose, on the other hand, it is, I think, fairly obvious that the building of a wall of partition would not immediately resolve any of our difficulties and would inevitably create others, the president knows my views on the subject, and the personal and institutional loyalty I owe him would not allow me to remain silent about it here at this cabinet meeting, but this does not, I repeat, mean that the commission's work should not begin as early as possible, as soon as it has been appointed, within the next few days. The president of the republic was visibly put out, I am the president, of course, and not the pope, and I do not, therefore, presume to any kind of infallibility, but I would like my proposal to be discussed with some urgency, As I said before, sir, came the prime minister's prompt reply, I give you my word that you will receive news of the commission's findings sooner than you might imagine, Meanwhile, I suppose we'll just have to continue groping our way blindly forward, said the president. The silence that fell was thick enough to blunt the blade of even the sharpest of knives. Yes, blindly, he repeated, unaware of the general embarrassment. From the back of the room came the minister of culture's calm voice, Just as we did four years ago. The minister of defense rose, red-faced, to his feet, as if he had been the object of a brutal, unforgivable obscenity, and, pointing an accusing finger, he said, You have just shamefully broken a national pact of silence to which we all agreed, As far as I know, there was no pact, far less a national one, I was a grown man four years ago, and I have no recollection of the population being summoned to sign a piece of parchment promising never to utter one word about the fact that for several weeks we were all of us blind, You're right, there was no formal pact, said the prime minister, intervening, but we all thought, without any need for any agreement on paper, that the dreadful test we had been through would, for the sake of our mental health, be best thought of as a terrible nightmare, something that existed as a dream rather than as a reality, In public maybe, but you are surely not telling me that you have never spoken about what happened in the privacy of your own home, Whether we have or not is of no importance, a lot of things happen in the privacy of one's home that never go beyond its four walls, and, if I may say so, your allusion to the as yet unexplained tragedy that occurred amongst us four years ago shows a degree of bad taste that I would not have expected in a minister of culture, The study of bad taste, prime minister, must be one of the longest and juiciest chapters in the history of culture, Oh, I didn't mean that kind of bad taste, but the other sort, otherwise known as a lack of tact, It would seem, prime minister, that you share the belief that death exists only because it has a name, that things have no real existence if we have no name to give them, There are endless things for which I don't know the name, animals, vegetables, tools and machines of every shape and size and for all conceivable purposes, But you know that they have names, and that puts your mind at rest, We're getting off the subject, Yes, prime minister, we are getting off the subject, all I said was that four years ago we were blind and what I'm saying now is that we probably still are. The indignation was general, or almost so, cries of protest leapt up and jostled for position, everyone wanted to speak, even the transport minister, who, being possessed of a strident voice, usually spoke very little, but was now setting his vocal cords to work, May I speak, may I speak. The prime minister looked at the president of the republic as if asking his advice, but this was pure theater, the president's diffident attempt at a gesture, whatever it was intended to mean, was quashed by the raised hand of his prime minister, Bearing in mind the emotive and passionate tone of the interpolations, it is clear that a debate would get us nowhere, which is why I will let none of you speak, especially since, possibly without realizing it, the minister of culture was spot on when he compared the plague currently afflicting us to a new form of blindness, That is not a comparison of my making, prime minister, I merely remarked that we were blind and that we very probably continue to be blind, any extrapolation not logically contained in my initial proposition is not allowable, Changing the position of words often changes their meaning, but they, the words, when weighed one by one, continue physically, if I may put it like that, to be exactly what they were and, therefore, In that case, allow me to interrupt you, prime minister, I want to make it quite clear that responsibility for any changes in the position or meaning of my words lies entirely with you and that I had nothing whatsoever to do with it, Let's say that you provided the nothing and I contributed the whatsoever and that the nothing and the whatsoever together authorize me to state that the blank vote is as destructive a form of blindness as the first one, Either that or a form of clear-sightedness, said the minister of justice, What, asked the interior minister, who thought he must have misheard, I said that the blank vote could be seen as a sign of clear-sightedness on the part of those who used it, How dare you, in the middle of a cabinet meeting, utter such antidemocratic garbage, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, no one would think you were the minister of justice, cried the minister of defense, Actually, I wonder if I've ever been more of a minister of justice or for justice than I am at this moment, Soon you'll have me believing that you, too, cast a blank vote, said the interior minister drily, No, I didn't cast a blank vote, but I'll certainly consider doing so next time. When the scandalized clamor of voices resulting from this last statement had begun to die away, a question from the prime minister brought it to a complete halt, Do you realize what you have just said, Yes, so much so that I place in your hands the post with which you entrusted me, I am tendering my resignation, replied the man who was now no longer either minister for or minister of justice. The president of the republic turned pale, he looked like an old rag that someone had distractedly left behind on the back of the chair, I never thought I would live to see the face of treachery, he said, and felt that history was sure to record the phrase, and should there be any risk of history forgetting, he would make a point of reminding it. The man who had up until now been the minister of justice got to his feet, bowed in the direction of the president and the prime minister and left the room. The silence was interrupted by the sudden scraping of a chair, the minister of culture had got up and, from the bottom of the table, in a strong, clear voice, was announcing, I wish to resign too, Oh, come on, don't tell me that, as your friend promised us just now in a moment of commendable frankness, you're considering casting a blank vote next time as well, the prime minister said, trying to be ironic, I doubt that will be necessary, I did so last time, Meaning, Exactly what you heard, nothing more, Kindly leave the room, Yes, prime m