374
PARTISAN REVIEW
fucking me over in view of the whole world and the doctors of science
smeared in mud! That's the way you bastards handle the mechanic
who neither eats nor sleeps but only pushes on in the field slugging
down rotgut for inspiration? That's all you care for my devotion to
the voters, who barely hand in their votes to their own Communist
Party anyway?
There is a limit, Citizen Judges , to the patience of even a Soviet
man, who is more patient than the man living in the conditions of
bourgeois exploitation and shameful bondage. There is a limit . Why
couldn't they have treated me decently? "Don't kill yourself with
overwork, Malykin , as if you were at war. Accidents happen .. . re–
pair the tractor . .. have a bite to eat ... recover your strength, you
drunken trade unionist .. . and make up for your lost time...."
That's how they should have treated me , and not busted up my
radiator, that is, my face, until it didn't look anything like its former
self. And they told me , despite the protests of the doctors of science,
to get out of the fields and go to the devil's dam and a bit farther.
The pistol was entrusted to me three years ago by our district
police officer. Then he died of appendicitis , and I didn't feel like giv–
ing the pistol up to the new one. Besides, the dead police officer was
a relative on my wife's side .
I carried the pistol on me exclusively during the preparations
for various elections to the organs of power and to the local soviets to
defend myself against incensed voters, which is where I began my
explanation .
Sometimes a voter would heave a stool at me and say, "Don't
come to me, you snake , until there's port in the village store ."
And I would grab my cannon and answer, "Have you had a
whiff of this , you speculator in our temporary difficulties? I'll knock
the political activism out of you, you bastard... ."
But as for shooting, I never shot until they beat me up in the
field and smeared me all over with you know what in front of every–
body . I did wing a few at the shameless insulters, but I didn't aim at
the important organs like the heart, the brain, and below the belt . I
request that the court take into account that I completely missed the
president and consider that shot invalid. I demand it be excluded
from the sentence. I'm also not much guilty of the rest , being an
honest man and tractor driver . . .
