536
PARTISAN REVIEW
I
was given the gold key to my lodging that very same day. As in a
fairy tale where the wizardly benefactor imposes a deadline,
I
was
offered refuge for an entire year. Everything seemed to have come
together under a lucky star. Time was eminently hospitable, as in my
distant or more recent youth. That spectacular summer, with its sun that
had turned solemn and imperial, heralded the beginning of a new era.
EXILE IS ALSO an initiation into simulacrum, an exercise in inventive
theatricality. This is what interior exile is about, the solitary man's alien–
ation within the ubiquitous totalitarian masquerade. But what of exile
proper? On the new stage, the newcomer had been cast in a role he had
never played before. Professor! .. .in a foreign world and a foreign lan–
guage, in front of a foreign audience.
The idyllic academic enclave could not dispel the exile's doubts; it only
rebuked them, every day, through the majestic peaceful woods and the
perfect sky. With every dusk, the hospitable summer months were bring–
ing the
Debut
closer, the meeting with the public, scheduled for that fall.
He had many doubts. He wondered how he could avoid the old role
that had made him famous. "The Lost One?" ...Not yet at home with
life? With its confused forces? Lost, any way, anywhere, any time?
WHEN
I
OPENED THE DOOR to the lecture room,
I
was amazed by the
casual, typically American look of my young audience. Quite a few of
them were barefoot....The relaxing effect of the superb September
afternoon or the pleasure of annoying the Martian who had been
trained on his bizarre native planet according to strict rules.
The dialogue with the class became natural quite soon. Despite a cer–
tain cultural deficit, most students were bright and open to anything
new. They had been educated in and for freedom; they were accustomed
to the critical spirit and defied preconceived ideas, even the most hon–
ored. Gradually, my new position was moderating its own routine.
TOWARD THE END of the semester, around November, when in Eastern
Europe the Berlin Wall and the walls within ourselves were being broken
