172
PARTISAN REVIEW
It is beyond belief, how confused and how harried he was! This
quarryman, this cleaver of mountains, this splitter of rocks, this one
who went out so fearlessly on night patrols, no sooner had to speak
publicly before his comrades, than he lost himself completely from
fright.
They waited, and he said nothing. The chairman again spoke,
directly to the green covered table:
((Haver
Yudka has the floor."
Yudka stood there crumbling inwardly and the sweat drops
came out on his brow.
"You wanted to make a statement." The chairman glanced
slantwise at him. "Well then, speak. We're listening."
As
for the committee members, some looked aside, some stared
off into space, and were silent.
At last Yudka passed his hand over his forehead , and said in
the soft, slurred accent of the South of Russia: " I didn't come here
to make a speech, only to say something important.... Really,
I
shouldn't be the one to speak.... Do you know what it is to speak
when it's best for you to keep still?"
He looked down the line of seats, parting his lips in an injured
smile, faint and sickly.
"But I must speak!" He fixed his eyes in a blank stare, his face
clouding. "I don't understand anything at all ... I no longer under-
stand. It's been years since I've understood...."
"What don't you understand?" the chairman asked him calmly,
like a judge trained to be patient with the public.
"Everything!" Yudka called out with passion, "Everything! But
that's nonsense. Let's leave that for now. All I want to know is:
What are we doing here?"
"Doing where?" The chairman did not follow him.
"Here! In this place, or in Palestine. In general. . . ."
"I
don't understand!" The chairman spread his hands wonder–
ingly, and his lips twisted in a mocking smile. "Now
I
don't under–
stand either.. . ."
"That's a different way of not understanding," Yudka rejoined.
"That's probably your way of mocking me."
One of the committee members broke into a broad grin, and
