38 / CHRONICLESnLetter From Albionnby Andrei NavrozovnApril in ParisnThe banging was first heard somewherenin the Alsace countryside, an hour or sonafter the train left Basel. For somenreason, local worthies invariably pronouncenthe city’s name the French way,nmaking it sound like the pagan deityndenounced by the Hebrew prophets.nThe temples of Baal, in this unconsciousninterpretation, are the ubiquitousnbanks, I suppose, but having spent a fewndays as a guest of one of the high priestsnhere, I had better hold my tongue.nRyltse V pushku, as the Russians say,nthere is down on my own muzzle. Itnwas delicious, whatever it was.nThe city is silent, except for thennearly inaudible hum of money beingnmade, so the sudden insolence of allnthat banging was all the more jarring.nOn inspection, its source turned out tonbe the restaurant car, where a grimnFrenchman kept rattling bottles andntrays. He did so out of a sense of duty,nand the noise seemed to echo hisninnermost thoughts. This is my job —nbang, bang, rattle, rattle — he wasnthinking, and personally—bang, rattle,nbang — I’d much rather be drinkingncoffee, but some of us—bang, bang,nbang — have to work for a living.nWe thought of the garbage collectorsnin Rome. The noise they madenhad no subtext, they did not think darknthoughts as they banged away. Theynwould be at it between 6:00 and 6:30nin the morning, beneath our windowsnin Via Monte della Forina, throwingnbits of scrap metal, old pipes, and othernhandy construction debris into the air,nthen picking them up and throwingnthem again and again, until 8:00, whennit was time to start moving the garbagenbins around and repeat the whole performancenusing only the low bass notesnof which the new instruments were sonmarvelously capable. The third andnfinal transcription of the piece — to benraced through molto vivace in justnCORRESPONDENCEnunder half an hour, by 9:00, whenncitizens of Rome would start openingntheir window shutters — consisted ofnshouts, laughter, and serial experimentsnwith the truck engine (which invariablynrose to the occasion and producednanimal, sometimes even humannsounds rarely associated with thatncoarse, prosaic invention popularizednby Henry Ford). There was no guile innany of this, no intention whatever toncause offense or inconvenience, nonattempt to attract attention. Nor wasnthis work in any conventional sense ofnthe word, work as routine, as activitynessential to survival; it was only work asnpoets understand it, which is why thesenpeople took three hours to “do” whatncould have been “done” in five minutes.nThey could have been drinkingncoffee instead, but they chose to work.nWork is joy, and joy is sometimesninefficient.nThus, as the train sped on towardsnParis, the contrast with the calculated,nunderhanded noise of the workingnGaul was obvious to the ear. Here wasnthe aural midpoint between SwissnMoney and Italian Pleasure: FrenchnResentment.nThe last of the pre-election ralliesnwere on the march then, the marchersngetting ready to vote their spite. It wasnclear that the candidate best able tonmuster the nation’s social envy in thenmost underhanded way would win.nBut we did not take the detour to watchnthe French vent their spite and makenfresh mayonnaise. Paris is blessed withnRussian restaurants — 40 when lastncounted—and even a dinner at thenmodest Au Regal, in rue Nicolo, makesnsuch a trip worthwhile. We ate ournpelmeni seated across from Bakunin’sngreat-grandson, who happily harvestsnthe fruits of social order as a professionalnmasseur. The family must havenknown it would come to a bad endnwhen Misha was tossed from the FirstnInternational in 1872 (“Don’t say Indidn’t warn you,” Karl must have toldnthem).nUnlike the summer, April does notnnndraw many Americans to the Continent.nTo make the condition permanent,nwe thought, someone shouldnpropose to Donald Trump the followingnambitious undertaking. Why notnbuild Europe in New York, or say NewnJersey, complete with important monumentsn(Eiffel Tower, Houses of Parliament,nColosseum), cultural relicsn(Stonehenge, bits of the Vatican, somenParis cafes), and so on. Much of thisnhas already been done piecemealn(Yale’s Oxbridge colleges, for example,nor the House of Pancakes). New Yorknalready boasts the world’s largest Gothicncathedral, St. John the Divine. Butnthe idea of a whole Disneyland ofnEurope — in Trump I’oeil, as it were —nwould have tremendous appeal!nAs a project of Trumpeuropa (registeredntrademark), Europeland (registeredntrademark) would be very cheapnto build: most buildings could be twodimensional,nin the manner of Potemkinnvillages and Hollywood stage sets,nsince their main purpose, in the firstnplace, is to provide a backdrop fornfamily photographs. One or two couldnbe working replicas, and another wouldnbe a kind of temple of world culture, itsncontents decided upon by the editorsnof the New York Times.nIt would be marvelous, for example,nif the vestry doors of a famous churchncould actually lead to a replica ofnFreud’s house in Vienna, while thenBritish Museum Library, at last renamednthe Karl Marx Library, couldnbe filled with books written by thenTimes contributors over the years.nSmall historical inaccuracies wouldnprobably pass unnoticed (besides, sincenthe Times would be given a piece ofnthe cultural action, retired schoolteachersnand other media gadflies wouldnhave nowhere to vent their complaints).nThus Donald Trump himself (andnhis wife Ivana) would be able to carvenout for himself (and his wife Ivana) anmajor niche in European history.nBrezhnev, for example, was fairly modestn(given the opportunities at his dis-n