MEET ME ON THE BARRICADES

ASCASO Smiling Imagine Dreiser, for example, getting up before an American audience and saying that he wanted to sing, shriek and howl with happiness and exal- tation at the mere sight of Franklin Delano Roose- velt. DARRELL I should think he’d be taken to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue for observation. ASCASO But then Roosevelt is not Stalin. DARRELL For which I offer up grateful prayer. Silence for a moment, then: Perhaps the explanation of Avdeyenko’s ecstasy can be found in the psychology of homosexuality. What do you think? ASCASO The truth, I think, is far simpler. In the Soviet Union the state is the sole publisher and Stalin, for all practical purposes, is the State. Hence Mr. Avdeyenko’s enthusiasm. He was not singing his panegyrics to the beloved leader; it was simply a hymn of praise to the source of his bread and butter.

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