The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??, 1959-06-25

Shev1k, and yet you yourself
don't deny that what's going on
isn't life - it's madness, an abb
surd nightmare"
"Of course it is. But it's his
torically inevitable. 1t has to be
gone thru" "Or do you think
radical change was possible
thru the Duma, by parliamentary
methods, and that we can do
without dictatorship"
When Yurii (Zhivago) arrived
in Varykino he started note
book. "What happiness, to work
from dawn to dusk for your FAM
lily and yourself, to build a roof
over their heads, to till the soil
to feed them, to create your own
world, like Robinson Crusoe, in
immatation of the Creator of the
universe, and as your own mother
did, to give birth to yourself. -
In discussion between Yurii and
Larisa about a leader in the rev.
olution it is indicated how one
can be drawn into taking part in
an activity even against ones -
own inner feelings. Larisa an
swers a question-"His alliance
with the Bolsheviks is accidental.
So long as they need him they
put up with him, and he hap
pens to be going their way. The
moment they don't need him
they'll throw him overheard with
no regret, and crush him as they
have done with other military
experts" The discussion contin-
ues "But it turns out that
thoe that inspired the revolution
aren't at home in anything ex-
cept change and turmoil, they
aren't happy with anything that's
on less than a world scale. For
them transitional periods, worlds
in the making, are an end in
themselves !. It's because these
men haven't any real capacities,
they are incompetent. Man is
born to live, not to prepare for
life. Life itself, the phenomenon
of life, the gift of life is SO breath
takingly serious! So why substi-
tute this childish harlequinade of
immature fantasies, these school,
boy escapades?"
Later Larisa was talking about
her husband whom she tried to
see, but could not get by the SEN
tries. Even if I had managed to -.
prove that I was, his wife, it
would not have done me any
good, What do wives matter at a
time like this? The workers Of
the world, the remaking of the
universe-that's something. But
wife, just an individual biped,
is of no more importance than .
flee or a louise"
Yurii talking. :. But life is
never material, a substance to
be nodded. life is the prin-
ciple of self-renewal, it is con-
stantly renewing and remaking
and changing and transferring
itself, it is infinitely beyond your
or my obtuse theories about it."
But there was always the state
of fear. Nothing was stable. And
then there was the Jump from
this peaceful naive moderation to
blood and tears, to mass insanity, i
to the savagery of daily, hourly,
legalized, rewarded slaughter"
'sThe main misfortune . was
the loss of confidence in the
value of one own opinion
that they must all sing in chorus,
and live by other peoples no.
tons, notions that, were cram
med down everybody's throat"
But after all there is the love
affair of Yurii and Lara, (the six.
teen year old girl at the begin
ming of the story who has; grown.
to womanhood and married but
left to wander from place to
place alone) who at this. time
had been urged to go away for
her own safety, induced to go
by Yurii which left him to mourn
the loss, as he scribbled his odds
and ends. Mourned also that dis
x