To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter by Vladimir Bukovsky & Michael Scammell

Author:Vladimir Bukovsky & Michael Scammell [Bukovsky, Vladimir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dissent Books
Published: 2017-03-07T08:00:00+00:00

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Is it possible to feel nostalgia for the madhouse or homesick for jail?

Only yesterday, stifled by that atmosphere of madness that impregnated everything, like pitch on the deck of a ship, all you could dream of was: Lord, let me out of here! You didn’t need very much, did you? Why were you eternally discontented, eternally looking for something better, and poisoning those simple, priceless moments of happiness that were always accessible to you if you really wanted them? What use to a man were riches, luxurious palaces, and the constant pursuit of pleasure, when a simple bread roll, bought for five kopecks at the railway station and gnawed unhurriedly as you ambled down the street, was more precious to you than anything in the world?

Drunk on the hurly-burly of the streets, on the mass of human faces and colorful apparel, you would board a tram and rumble along the boulevard. There would be no need to peer suspiciously at others and get tensed up each time they asked you a question. Each new crossroads and each street would be as full of people as words are of meaning. And you would be able to get off at any stop and mingle with the crowd, stunned by the colors and the sounds. Or jump off while the tram was still moving.

The main thing was to want nothing, desire nothing, and strive for nothing; then the warm evening twilight, the lights in the windows, and the scraping of thousands of feet would come to you like unexpected gifts. And the scent of the fields, the intoxicating resinous aroma of pine needles, the gurgling of water…. You would tramp the dusty lanes from deserted village to deserted village, sleep the night in a hay-stack, and when you were woken by the morning chill, you would stride across the fields wrapped in morning mist. All you needed was not to think of the morrow, not to wait for it, and then every ray of sunlight would be a miracle, every morning a discovery.

But the moment you cross the threshold of your jail, this idyllic dream goes to hell. The first person you see, the filthy wooden fence across the street, smothered in tattered posters, the peeling tram, the hurrying crowds of people and the dead gray blocks of apartments—all seem no more than a stage set, with no relation to you at all. The movement, faces, colors, and sounds fill you with unbearable pain, and as the tram climbs screechingly up the hill, you stare at the rubbish-strewn floor beneath your feet and wait. Whenever someone comes too close to you, you curl up inside: Hurry up and pass by. This noisy world won’t tolerate the uninvolved—it pushes you, pulls you, orders you about, makes demands on you, threatens you, and tells you to be careful.

What do you want of me? Leave me in peace, let me alone. Don’t touch me. I want to squat right here, alone, and stare into space, seeing nothing.

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