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Enemies like Satan are the top of the line, of course, which is why one discovers them only in fiction. Real-life enemies are rarely protean; usually they assume a single form with which they are comfortable, and stick with it. There is the help-seeking enemy, for example, who plays upon the odd fact of human behavior that by requesting your aid or advice he lowers himself before you and thus disables your wrath by your own sense of shame. Then too there is the help-giving enemy, who attempts to pile so much generosity about your head that you are brought to your knees in response. There is the next-of-kin enemy as well, who takes out on a loved one the wickedness he intends for you. Finally, there is the worthiest of the lot, the open-and-aboveboard enemy, who declares straight out that he yearns for your obliteration. Unfortunately, people of this type are so admirable that the temptation to convert them to friends may be overwhelming. This one must resist. If it is true that former friends make the best enemies, the converse is also true, and one would hate himself for destroying a fine antipathy through sheer carelessness.
History is, in fact, littered with once bitter feuds that sweetened over time simply because the combatants lacked the will or the stamina to sustain them. For three delightful centuries, the Nicolotti and Castellani families of Venice enjoyed so virulent a relationship that citizens would gather to watch them fight it out on what came to be called the Ponte dei Pugni, the Bridge of Fists. If they were not doing battle there, they were knocking one another about on a drawbridge that the authorities would raise, leaving the two factions glowering at each other impotently from opposite sides. Yet the brawls eventually dissipated into athletic contests, and in 1848 the families were formally reconciled in a ceremony at dawn. The pact was kept secret so as not to dismay the rest of the city.
Dickens and Thackeray warred warily for years—as only competing authors can—over implied slights and suggested injuries. But this feud also disintegrated in conciliatory mutters and a handshake. So it goes too often. Even the Hatfields and the McCoys are said to be on cordial terms these days. Who knows but that in the dank, unhealthy future lies the collective rapprochement of Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, Diana Trilling, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer—all hugging wildly or nodding demurely in disgusting displays of propriety? One can hardly rely on anything.
The trouble is that great enmities often flourish between equally great people, and no matter how harsh or deep the animosity, a good enemy will often become first recognizable, then familiar and eventually even likable. "My only love sprung from my only hate!" said Juliet, thus crumbling in an exclamation what her forebears took decades to develop. When the American Civil War was over, Walt Whitman lamented: "My enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead." With enemies like that, who needs friends! This is the danger of applying conscience to what ought to be conducted by naked reflex. It is benumbing to consider how many perfectly good enmities have been ruined by the imposition of gentleness, fatigue or common sense.