oxxxymiron - спонтанное самовозгорание [spontaneous combustion]
“Yes,” I replied, “freedom is nothing but a phantom on that continent of sorrow, but they’ve got used to the situation, they hardly notice it at all. You know, they never showed any of the servility I’ve got so used to here. I walked about a lot and looked at them very closely, but I never saw one grimace, one gesture, one response which wasn’t full of dignity. Enough dignity to last us a Seven Year Plan. ‘I wonder why,’ I asked myself, as I turned from Manhattan into Fifth Avenue. ‘It must be their revolting self-satisfaction.’ And I stood still in the middle of Fifth Avenue trying to answer the following question: ‘In a world full of propaganda and advertising capers, where does all this self-satisfaction come from?’ I went to Harlem and I kept asking myself: ‘Where does it come from? They are the playthings of monopoly ideologists, puppets in the hands of armament kings — and yet, look at their appetite! They stuff themselves five times a day, and always with the same limitless dignity. How can a decent man have an appetite, let alone in the United States?”
- Venedikt Erofeev, from Moscow to the End of the Line
