18
PARTISAN REVIEW
It was a different anxiety which prompted the voice from the
shadows behind him.
"Vadime, you ought to go to bed. You tire yourself out too
much. The stove has gone out."
"Yes, my dear."
The cold began to penetrate his stiff limbs. He undressed
slowly, thoughtfully, blew out the lamp, crawled shivering between
the sheets and stretched out "as
if
for eternity." And it was here
that clear phrases arose in his mind, ordering themselves in sen–
tences which would make excellent fragments of articles. "The
death rate in Petrograd this year was greater than in the Punjab
during the great plague of 1907!! !" "The great reform of Peter
the First appeared to some of the best minds of old Russia to
inaugurate the reign of the Antichrist...•" " •.• at the death of
Peter the First, the empire was depopulated..••" But no, that
wasn't it. History explained nothing. Must one, in order to under–
stand, think less, know less? Were things much more simple than
they seemed? Title for a work:
The Decline of the Roman Empire.
What could he more clear? No explanation. What was there to
explain?
The Decline of Christian Civilization.
No, not
Christian,
European.
That was no more exact.
Decline of Capitalist Civiliza–
tion.
If
the newspapers told the truth,
if
one should believe the
posters in the streets, the speeches at the meetings, if .•• ?
He thought of Parfenov, asleep at this hour on some chance
couch, not far from there, in some unknown house, certain of
man's greatness in ten years, twenty years, providing this necessary
night was endured. "They do not know history, but they make it
•.. but what are they making, what are they making?"
(Translated by Gertrude Buckman)
