STARS IN THE NIGHT
Index, the admirable English quarterly devoted to freedom of expression throughout the world, prints in a recent issue a group of jokes from totalitarian (or, as in the case of Greece, recently...
...exclaims the official...
...exclaimed Pattakos, deeply moved...
...The first reason is that last night my neighbor, Mr...
...Excuse me, but can you tell me what has happened here...
...He therefore goes to the Passport and Visa Office and, after some argument with a number of underlings, manages to see the highest official...
...Well, there you are—that's my second reason...
...The future of Russian literature, if it is destined to have a future, is being nourished by jokes, just as Pushkin grew up imbibing the tales his nanny told him...
...Of course I know Solzhenitsyn, who doesn't these days...
...Well," says the official, "tell me the first one...
...You must surely have some very good reason for wishing to leave your beautiful Socialist homeland...
...Kohn," the official says to him, "what can I do for you...
...How marvelous of you—you want us to be all alone together...
...Well, he's a writer and he got expelled...
...Kohn...
...But what has that got to do with it...
...Puzzled, he walks around for a time...
...Epidemic An English visitor arrives in Moscow, only to find the streets completely deserted...
...But why...
...Index, the admirable English quarterly devoted to freedom of expression throughout the world, prints in a recent issue a group of jokes from totalitarian (or, as in the case of Greece, recently dictatorial) countries, and prefaces the selection with a passage from a recent essay, "The Literary Process in Russia," by Andrei Sinyaysky: IN RECENT TIMES only the joke has preserved that exceptional, spontaneous resilience that is characteristic of art and goes beyond mere freedom of speech...
...Of course I have a reason...
...Oh, my precious...
...You know I would, darling," replied the general, "you have but to ask...
...No, no," says the old man...
...Now, Mr...
...Do I know Solzhenitsyn...
...The joke is a pure demonstration of the miracle of art, which thrives on the savagery and rage of dictators...
...As they sat drinking a last glass before retiring for the night, she turned her large blue eyes toward him, embraced him affectionately and said: "Stelio, my sweet, would you do something for me if I were to ask you a favor...
...The official smiles and says, "Oh, Mr...
...there is not a soul to be seen anywhere...
...Two good reasons Mr...
...Yes, yes, I know," interrupts the visitor impatiently...
...Kohn, I assure you, this regime is not going to collapse...
...You can give me a passport, that's what you can do for me," replies Mr...
...Reason...
...In fact, I have two reasons...
...Has there perhaps been an epidemic in Moscow...
...At last he meets an elderly invalid, hobbling along with the aid of a stick...
...All right, then, please give orders for the frontiers to be opened...
...Adamczyk, came to me and said, `Kohn, when this regime collapses and we hang all the Communists, you're going to swing with them.' And I don't want to wait for that to happen...
...You don't seem to understand...
...I've been out in the streets for over half an hour now and you are the first human being I've come across...
...No matter how strongly it is suppressed (and there was a time when you could get five or even ten years for "shooting your mouth off"), it only flourishes on suppression, gaining not in bitterness but in humor and lucidity...
...Sweet solitude General Pattakos, the Prime Minister of Greece under the junta, wined and dined a beautiful young girl friend and then took her home to his villa...
...replies the Englishman...
...No epidemic— they're all at home, writing...
...Throughout the whole of our thirty-year night and up to the present day, jokes have continued to shine like stars in the nocturnal blackness...
...I want to get out...
...Emigrate...
...I want to emigrate...
...Kohn, a citizen of Warsaw, decides to emigrate...
...The old man nods and says: "Solzhenitsyn, znayesh...
Vol. 22 • September 1975 • No. 4
