uniquely flattering to the beauty of thernwatcli face, with which the hands arernthen in perfect harmony, and one mayrnwell ask wh) anybody needs to have anyrnsort of movement inside in the first place,rnif Hi is is the way time is supposed to look.rnThis is a political question, more subversive,rnin fact, than the question ofrnwhether the next president of the UnitedrnStates is an onanist, whether the incumbentrnis a perjurer and a rapist, or whetherrnthe Constitution should be quicklyrnrewritten b the faeult)’ of the Yale LawrnSchool. If I had the technical and financialrnmeans to bring it to the attenfion ofrnthe American people that George Bush,rnlike his father, began his adult life with arnritual sacrifice of Christian dignity’ to opportimisticrneareerism, I am convincedrnthat little Dubya would not get to be president.rnB- contrast, a simple convention,rnsuch as fliat upon which the commercialrnsuccess of a blind tenor, or of a Swissrnchronometer, is hinged, is practically unchallengeable,rnbased as it is on centuriesrnof cultural condifioning, ethical as wellrnas aesthetic.rnConsider for a moment the conventionrnof the ordinary mirror. When arnwoman inspects herself in a glass, shernwishes to see herself as others would seernher, and only a psvchologically insensiblernobserver will tell you that her expectationrnor purpose are any different. Andrnyet it ought to be perfectly plain to thernwoman that her wish is 100 percentrnunattainable, that what the glass is reflecfingrnis how she sees herself, that andrnthat alone. Why bother with mirrorsrnthen? And €t the)’ are ineradicable, asrnmuch part of the mise en scene of our ci-rnilization as time and language, musicrnand painting, oil and wine.rnIn Florence I had to change trainsrnagain, and as the Eurostar on which I hadrna reservation was simply not there, I hadrnto choose whether to kill time chatting tornprostitutes outside the station or lookingrnat postcards displayed in the kiosks. Thernpostcards were all of Michelangelo’srnDavid. I counted 14.slightly different versions.rnB’ a strange coincidence, when Irnfinalh’ did board the train, there was onrnnu’ seat a eop’ of the Times, left fliere bvrnsome absentminded Englishman, with arnfront-page photograph of the Florentinernlandmark. “Michelangelo’s David,” readrnthe caption; “The squint means the eyesrnlook beautiful on both profiles.”rnThe stor’ was fliat a Stanford Universit-rnresearch team, having laser-scannedrnthe head of flie marble sculpture, determinedrnthat Michelangelo’s hero is crosseyed,rnapparenfly “on purpose, because itrnprovided good profiles of David whenrnseen from either side.” Naturally, as thernsculpture is gigantic, nobody had everrnnoticed this before, and in my growing irritationrnI had to ask the obvious, tactless,rnRussian question, namely, if realismrnwas the confessed aim of the Renaissance,rnhow come they made their sharpshooterrncross-eyed? And what gave themrnthe idea to make their David the size ofrnGoliafli?rnCulture for the people,rnA store where you shop for free!rnI have already written here, duringrnwhat I now recall as my years of Elorentinerncaptivity, about the parallels betweenrnthe Renaissance of the Medici and thernsocialist realism of my native land’s recentrnpast. I’he theme is a vast one, andrnwhile its chilling depths hold an attractionrnfor me that is almost hypnotic, whatrnmight hae remained a private obsessionrnhas been dilated and rendered objectivernby readings in such intellectually disciplinedrnprophets of the uniersal totalitarianrntomorrow as Vasily Rozano’ andrnPavel Elorensky.rnI cannot describe Rozanov as the greatestrnwriter Russia has ever produced because,rnas he himself once wrote, to speakrnof a writer’s stature is as idiofic as to comparernJoan of Arc with a railroad. Sufficernit to sa’ that I believe that Rozanov is tornthe 21st century what Dostoyevsky hasrnbeen to the 20th, while Father Elorensky,rnwho incidentally administered hisrnphilosopher friend’s last rites at his deathrnfrom cold and hunger in 1919, may berndescribed as that balancing intellectualrnforce of counterreformation that thernWest has been wanting so pitifully sincernat least the invention of movable type.rnNo Modern Convention, no LiberalrnPremise, no Child of Enlightenment arernsafe, thank goodness, so long as a singlernpage of flieir writings remains unincineratedrnand unsuppressed.rnTake Darwin, for a more or less rele-rnant example. “Darwin never noficed,”rnwrote Rozanov,rnthat in nature the eyes glisten. Hernhas depicted nature as opaque,rnwith exfinguished, dead eyes…rnHe has created filth, not zoology.rnAnd the filfliy epoch has bowed tornhis filth: “Wc don’t need music,rnwe’ve got the gramophone.” Suchrnis Darwinism.rn”The mouth is for eafing.” Pine,rnwonderful. But all you need forrnthat is an orifice through whichrn”food is introduced.” histead, thernmouth is not an orifice, but—arnmouth. “A lovely mouth.” Perhaps,rnas I think, for kissing? No?rnWiry not? It is uniquely humairrnthat the mouth should be so beautiful,rnwhich is why no other animalrnlikes to kiss. Wliile the one whosernloe begins with a kiss has been gi’-rnen a uniquely beaufiful mouth.rnThe reader can confirm for himselfrnthe truth of Ro/anov’s sentiments by gazingrnfor half an hour, as I did on that trainrnspiriting me away from the cradle ofrnWestern humanism, into the dead eyesrnof Michelangelo’s David, those vacantrnhalf-globes of marble with holes at theirrncenters that are meant to look, from arngreat distance and only to a spectator positionedrnin front of the Palazzo Vecchio,rnlike the Biblical hero’s pupils. If Darwinrnwere God, all men would look likernMichelangelo’s David from a great distance.rnUncovering the actual roots of Renaissancernart in the theater design of ancientrnGreece and of the Roman graeculorum,rnElorensky analyzed both its illusionist,rnpyrotechnic, crowd-pleasing aims and itsrnassumption of a captive and immobile,rnalmost paralyzed audience with similarrnmereilessness:rnThe pathos of the modern man isrnin ridding himself of all reality,rnwhereupon his naked “I v’ant”rnwould legislate over a new realit)’rnentirely of his own construction,rnphantasmagoric though clearly expressiblernon graph paper. Thernpathos of the ancient as well as thernmedieval man is, to the contrary, inrnthe grateful acceptance of e’erv reality’,rnfor all being is goodness andrnall goodness—being. The pathosrnof the medieval man is in the affirmationrnof the realit’ within andrnwithout him; hence objecdvit)’.rnWliile modern subjectivism invitesrnillusionism, n’othing could be furtherrnaway from flie intentions andrnthoughts of the man of the MiddlernAges than creafion of appearancesrnand life among fiefions.rnI want to end this with a kind ofdimin-rnOCTOBER 2000/39rnrnrn