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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