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Nemeth:
His being here
Was out of order, obviously. However,
He's even less of a threat: a man of honour
Such as I wouldn't claim to be. And brave,
I said he was brave. I'll offer you one instance:
You've been through Checkpoint Charlie, I suppose?
Yes. Well, it's harder for us twilight people.
For him it was unconscionably risky.
PARTISAN REVIEW
He went through, and came back. And you know why?
He'd got it in his head he had a brother
Interred in the Red Army mausoleum.
You've seen it? It's impressive. Forty or
Sixty times over, LV. Stalin lauds
The Russian dead. Not Pushkin even once?
No, not once. Nor Lenin. He came back
Appalled, distraught. Fought in the wrong mob, see?
Him and his brother, both; no help for it.
And, pastor, that's irreparable Berlin
East and West: a happy Babylon
For your young soldiers and their gravid wives.
Thomson:
In Babylon the pastoral office is
Harder than in encircled Stalingrad.
Nemeth:
Ah, very true. I seem to taunt you, pastor,
Because you have the authority I once had.
That I envy you, but not your mission;
Just as, unlike the brave old friend I came with,
I want confession, but not absolution.
Which I'm to get. A corporal's detail
Is stamping underneath us, and high time.
Pastor, goodbye. And thank you. It's not often
I get to have some clerical conversation.
"His beauty to consume away like a moth,"
You might remember; and remember me
Possibly in your prayers from time to time?
