FATIGUE OF THE SYNAPSES
"Nearing fifty. Still pretty. At least
I
think so."
"Always devoted to each other like two turtle doves?"
Leontiev smiled. "You are not married."
"Not in my line.... "
21
There was a silence. Suddenly the Professor asked in a casual
tone : "Why don't you clear out?"
At first Leontiev thought that he had not heard well; then he
composed his features and put on the stem, bushy-eyebrow look
which made people like the poet Navarin change their color.
" 1 haven't understood you-at least 1 hope so," he said gravely.
"All right, all right, cut it out.
As
soon as 1 leave, you can rush
to the telephone and denounce me. 1 shall then say that 1 have delib–
erately tried to provoke you. Maybe that's what 1 am doing, who
knows? Anyway, you are one of the few who are allowed from time
to time to go abroad to congresses and whatnots. But of course each
time you have to leave Zina behind as a hostage. Hence the choice
before you is: to sacrifice Zina or to go on sacrificing art, truth,
integrity, et cetera. Personally 1 don't know what art, truth, integrity,
et cetera, mean-not in my line. But 1 know that to some people they
mean something-enough to make the synapses go haywire in con–
flicts of this kind.... Now, 1 have watched your reactions- l bet you
imagine you have what people call 'an inscrutable face'-so 1 know
that although you long to clear out, and write the one honest book
of your life, you are too much of a moral coward to let Zina end
her days north of the Arctic Circle for the sake of Honesty, Truth
and so on. ... Shut up," he screamed suddenly, as Leontiev tried
to interrupt him, "shut up and let me finish first. You wanted me to
be explicit, didn't you? ... Anyway, solution number one has to be
eliminated because of your sentimental attachment to Zina. The other
solution
is
much more complicated. You have difficulties in writing;
these difficulties will increase gradually ; soon you will be entirely
blocked. Nobody can go on raping his conscience indefinitely. 1 use
'conscience' as a shorthand expression though it isn't in my line;
what 1 mean is a given pattern of conditioning. You can go against
it for a while, even for years, but it requires more and more effort,
and once the toxic fatigue-products begin to accumulate, you are done
for. The only way out is to alter the pattern through reconditioning.
1 have done that successfully in a number of cases-but there the
