The great mass of people thus prefer to glide over the surface of reality, always shirking the effort of trying to understand it. - Nadezhda Mandelstam

How did it happen? We saw it come about in front of our very eyes. All intermediate social links, such as the family, one's circle of friends, class, society itself-each abruptly disappeared, leaving every one of us to stand alone before the mysterious force embodied in the State, with its powers of life and death. In ordinary parlance, this was summed up in the word "Lubianka" (Footnote: "Headquarters of the secret police, and political prison in Moscow.") If what we have seen in this country is only a process taking place throughout Europe, then it must be said that we have demonstrated the sickness of the age in a form so acute and unadulterated as to merit special study in any search for the prevention and cure of it. In an age when the main cry is "Every man for himself," the personality is doomed. Personality is dependent on the world at large, on one's neighbors. It defines itself by reference to others and becomes aware of its own uniqueness only when it sees the uniqueness of everyone else.

Why were they all so eager for fame? Surely nothing was ever less worth thinking about. (p 427)

People like myself were the lucky ones who had not gone to prison. Knowing what it was like to live in "freedom," I was always thinking of those who were behind barbed wire. This was why I could not think about myself, but only about all the others-those who had gone away and would never return, those who still nourished hopes of coming back but would never live to see the day. Every time I heard rumors of new arrests, it was like salt in my own fresh wounds. In the midst of such general misery and doom, the word "I" lost its meaning, becoming shameful or taboo. Who dared talk about his own fate or complain about it when it was the same for everybody?