A Journey for Our Times, A Memoir

ISBN: 9780060390068

出版社: Harper & Row

出版年: 1983

定价: 84.00

装帧: Hardcover

内容简介

Child of War To a workingman, head tucked into collar against the wind, hurrying home in the dark Minnesota November, the figure of a small boy slowly stomping across the snowy lawn beyond the yel- low arc of gaslight was almost invisible, a blur against the cre- puscular shadows of the gabled house. A flint-edged wind dis- couraged curiosity, but if, despite wind, and cold, and winter twilight, the man had taken note, he would perhaps have been puzzled at the boy's movements, trudging a dozen paces toward the naked thorn apple hedge, feet squeaking on the dry snow, abruptly reversing and repeating his maneuver again and again, almost as though he was standing guard. The small boy was myself, and in fact I was standing guard. It was late November 1917. The Revolution had triumphed in Pet- rograd and that evening I was a member of the Children's Regi- ment. I wore my high-peaked Budenny helmet of gray felt with its red star, and a long-skirted uniform coat over Cossack boots. I thrust my hands deep into black gauntlets and on my shoulder I bore a Berdan rifle. Back and forth I paced before the Winter Palace; back and forth beside the parapet beyond which lay the expanse of Palace Square and the shaft of the monument to Alexander I. Occasionally, I glanced at the glowing windows of the palace and saw my silhouette on the crust of snow: the peak of my helmet, the long point of my bayonet, black against thewhite. The scene was more real than life. I was a boy soldier onsentry duty. Then, as I knew it would, came the voice of my mother at thekitchen door. "BunnyI Bunny!" she called. "Time to come in.You'll catch your death of cold." I hesitated a moment to show that I was not hungry, not cold,not beginning to get a bit frightened by my fantasy, then Iturned, left the parapet of snow I had built, and with a last lookto the dark curve of Royalston Avenue, where the enemy lay hid-den off toward the coalyards, I hurried to the house which mygrandfather had built and where I had lived since I was born, onNovember 14, 1908. Stacking beside the door the rifle I had fash-