He stands alone on the carpet
Softer than anything he'd stood on for years
Softer than the mine shafts he'd helped to dig
Softer than the forests he'd helped to log
Softer than the hospital wards where he'd fought for his life
Life
Such a fleeting thing
He looks across the massive, heavy, gilded desk
At the bureaucrat behind it
The contrast could not be more stark
Corpulent, comfortable, and panicked
Versus thin, hungry, arrogant, and at peace
All of the world on one hand
Abject destitution on the other
Threats, ineffective, fall on stone-hard heart
Thrown back into the face of the bureaucrat
Knowing, and stating in fact, that the bureaucrat needs the prisoner
While the prisoner has no need of the bureaucrat
Because it is the bureaucrat who is in bondage
While the prisoner is free
Free
Free
Free
One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the entire Prussian Army, elevate the state hierarchy above the throne of the Almighty, but one cannot get past the unaccountable spiritual superiority of certain people.
Some soldiers are feared by their company commanders. There are laborers who intimidate their foremen, prisoners who make their prosecutors tremble....
Bobynin walked directly in and sat down without greeting the minister. He sat in one of the comfortable armchairs not far from the minister's desk and blew his nose with deliberation in the not-so-white handkerchief he had washed himself in the course of his last bath.
Abakumov, supposing that he did not understand the differences in rank and that he had not guessed from the enfilade of doors where he was, asked him almost peaceably, "Why did you sit down without permission?"
Bobynin, looking slightly sideways at the minister, kept on cleaning his nose with the help of his handkerchief and replied in a casual voice, "Well, you see, there's a Chinese proverb: 'It's better to stand than to walk, it's better to sit than stand, and the best of all is to lie down.' "
"But do you understand who I am?"
Comfortably leaning his elbows on the arms of his chosen chair, Bobynin now looked directly at Abakumov and ventured a lazy guess: "Well, who? Someone like Marshal Goering?"
"Like who?"
"Marshal Goering. Once he visited the aircraft factory near Halle, where I had to work. The local generals all walked on tiptoe, but I didn't even glance in his direction. He looked and he looked and then he moved on."
Something like a smile wavered on Abakumov's face, but then he frowned at the unbelievably impudent prisoner. He blinked from tension and asked, "What's this? You don't see any difference between us?"
"Between you and him? Or between US?" There was a ring of steel in Bobynin's voice. "Between us I see it very clearly: you need me, and I don't need you."
Abakumov felt it would be useless and undignified to shout.
He only warned, "Listen, prisoner. Just because I'm easy on you, don't forget yourself --"
"And if you were rude to me, I wouldn't even talk to you, Citizen Minister. Shout at your colonels and generals. THey have too much in life they're afraid of losing."
"We would make you talk."
"You are wrong, Citizen Minister!" Bobynin's strong eyes shone with hate. "I have nothing, you understand -- not a thing! You can't get your hands on my wife and child -- a bomb got them first. My parents are already dead. My entire property on earth is my handkerchief; my coveralls and my underwear that has no buttons --" he demonstrated by baring his chest -- "are government issue. You took my freedom away long ago, and you don't have the power to return it because you don't have it yourself. I am forty-two years old, and you've dished me out a twenty-five year term. I've already been at hard labor, gone around with a number on, in handcuffs, with police dogs, and in a strict-regime work brigade. What else is there you can threaten me with? What can you deprive me of? My work as an engineer? You'll lose more than I will. I'm going to have a smoke."
Abakumov opened a box of special-issue Troikas and pushed it toward Bobynin. "Here, take these."
"Thanks, but I don't switch brands. Those make me cough." And he took a Belomor from his homemade cigarette case. "Just understand one thing, and pass it along to anyone at the top who still doesn't know that you are strong only as long as you don't deprive people of EVERYTHING. For a person you've taken EVERYTHING from is no longer in your power. He's free all over again."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn - "The First Circle"
Softer than anything he'd stood on for years
Softer than the mine shafts he'd helped to dig
Softer than the forests he'd helped to log
Softer than the hospital wards where he'd fought for his life
Life
Such a fleeting thing
He looks across the massive, heavy, gilded desk
At the bureaucrat behind it
The contrast could not be more stark
Corpulent, comfortable, and panicked
Versus thin, hungry, arrogant, and at peace
All of the world on one hand
Abject destitution on the other
Threats, ineffective, fall on stone-hard heart
Thrown back into the face of the bureaucrat
Knowing, and stating in fact, that the bureaucrat needs the prisoner
While the prisoner has no need of the bureaucrat
Because it is the bureaucrat who is in bondage
While the prisoner is free
Free
Free
Free
One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the entire Prussian Army, elevate the state hierarchy above the throne of the Almighty, but one cannot get past the unaccountable spiritual superiority of certain people.
Some soldiers are feared by their company commanders. There are laborers who intimidate their foremen, prisoners who make their prosecutors tremble....
Bobynin walked directly in and sat down without greeting the minister. He sat in one of the comfortable armchairs not far from the minister's desk and blew his nose with deliberation in the not-so-white handkerchief he had washed himself in the course of his last bath.
Abakumov, supposing that he did not understand the differences in rank and that he had not guessed from the enfilade of doors where he was, asked him almost peaceably, "Why did you sit down without permission?"
Bobynin, looking slightly sideways at the minister, kept on cleaning his nose with the help of his handkerchief and replied in a casual voice, "Well, you see, there's a Chinese proverb: 'It's better to stand than to walk, it's better to sit than stand, and the best of all is to lie down.' "
"But do you understand who I am?"
Comfortably leaning his elbows on the arms of his chosen chair, Bobynin now looked directly at Abakumov and ventured a lazy guess: "Well, who? Someone like Marshal Goering?"
"Like who?"
"Marshal Goering. Once he visited the aircraft factory near Halle, where I had to work. The local generals all walked on tiptoe, but I didn't even glance in his direction. He looked and he looked and then he moved on."
Something like a smile wavered on Abakumov's face, but then he frowned at the unbelievably impudent prisoner. He blinked from tension and asked, "What's this? You don't see any difference between us?"
"Between you and him? Or between US?" There was a ring of steel in Bobynin's voice. "Between us I see it very clearly: you need me, and I don't need you."
Abakumov felt it would be useless and undignified to shout.
He only warned, "Listen, prisoner. Just because I'm easy on you, don't forget yourself --"
"And if you were rude to me, I wouldn't even talk to you, Citizen Minister. Shout at your colonels and generals. THey have too much in life they're afraid of losing."
"We would make you talk."
"You are wrong, Citizen Minister!" Bobynin's strong eyes shone with hate. "I have nothing, you understand -- not a thing! You can't get your hands on my wife and child -- a bomb got them first. My parents are already dead. My entire property on earth is my handkerchief; my coveralls and my underwear that has no buttons --" he demonstrated by baring his chest -- "are government issue. You took my freedom away long ago, and you don't have the power to return it because you don't have it yourself. I am forty-two years old, and you've dished me out a twenty-five year term. I've already been at hard labor, gone around with a number on, in handcuffs, with police dogs, and in a strict-regime work brigade. What else is there you can threaten me with? What can you deprive me of? My work as an engineer? You'll lose more than I will. I'm going to have a smoke."
Abakumov opened a box of special-issue Troikas and pushed it toward Bobynin. "Here, take these."
"Thanks, but I don't switch brands. Those make me cough." And he took a Belomor from his homemade cigarette case. "Just understand one thing, and pass it along to anyone at the top who still doesn't know that you are strong only as long as you don't deprive people of EVERYTHING. For a person you've taken EVERYTHING from is no longer in your power. He's free all over again."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn - "The First Circle"
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