18
PARTISAN REVIEW
or a prophet, said to Dr. Torriente - and to herself without realizing
it - "Doctor, you must commit suicide . . .
suicide is also a political
weapon."
THE EXQUISITE LIFE OF A LEADER
The deluded poor and the decorated rich live the reverse of
your proletarian speeches.
You, who galvanized us with your egalitarianism, today regale
your henchmen with such lavishness that in Cuba the underdogs
were never so low and the overdogs never so high and mighty .
But none so high as you.
Orwell writes: "The general poverty stresses the importance of
the privileges and distinctions that separate one group from
another."
You enjoy few sensations as exquisite as having yourself elected,
unanimously,
to the office of President of the Council of State by a Council of
State whose members, each and everyone of them, you appointed as
easily as you could annihilate them.
It
is a refined drug that holds no danger of abuse or addiction.
How absurd is your hope that you can give yourself everything!
What madness to satisfy every whim!
Your ostentation is so great, your offices so numerous, your
privileges so many, but with so much display only your debilities
shine through.
Perfumed with medals, your beard half-opened with a spider's
gluttony, your arrogance dresses for a funeral with no crepe or com–
fort.
- You have at your disposal twenty-five houses and estates known as
"Fidel's residences."
Like a god, you've changed the date of Carnival just because
you wanted to: it's no longer the beginning of Lent, it's the middle of
summer.
-Your birthdays are an "obligatorily voluntary" celebration in every
barracks, factory, shop, school, university . In every corner of the
Island they sing you the proletarian version of Happy Birthday.
- You've added the decadent luxuries of a millionaire from the 1930s
to your sumptuous Soviet limousine.
With a single kick of your boot you've suppressed the celebra–
tion of Christmas Eve and Christmas, and with one stroke of the pen
