The Drama Of History

Up in the historical society, one of the docents started telling me about how he had translated one of Camus’ plays. He was a clean-cut, scurvy type who lived on a houseboat. Our conversation wandered, and when we were on the quandary of the socialists in the Russian Revolution who believed an assassination was moral but would not permit themselves to kill, he farted. Loud and dry. He began giggling. I was prepared to ignore it, but before long I was grinning, then giggling. Nothing was said, and the conversation resumed with more revolutionaries. We were best friends after that.