Atdtda30: How we do they, 844-846

[Paul Nightingale]

>From "the doings of the great" to "a locomotive running without lights or
signals" (845). A Great Man view of history, with ambassadors and emperors
'named', so to speak. Mere people become "[t]he continent" (844); and, with
an attempt to second-guess the Tsar, mere "speculation" signifies impotence,
perhaps. There is a "bad daydream" (845), aka "the European Question", no
more than the interactions of governments with consequences both foreseen
and unforeseen: hence, a general passivity. On agency and consequences: go
back to Webb's July Fourth with Veikko in Ch8.

And then to a Mavri Gata where conversation is possible. The section opens
by locating agency offstage ("News had filtered through at last ..." etc,
844), before turning to the "noodle-thin and mournful Bulgarian" who corners
Cyprian (845), bringing with him the Macedonian Question. If the section
opens with Great Men, here Gabrovo Slim elaborates on the way conflict is
generated, the routine (bureaucratic) choices made by those anonymous
functionaries who are, most emphatically, not resistant "rembetes": the
runaway train, after all, has been produced by those who do the work. In
Ch8, on July Fourth's national holiday, anarchists and capitalists are still
working. Veikko: "We are their strength ..." (83).

In the Mavti Gata, the narrative suspends conversation to fill in detail of
the "ancient dispute" before Danilo interrupts to recall a more personal
history, "how we got out of Bosnia". Gabrovo Slim is evasive. Cyprian asks
for "your own thoughts on the matter"; Gabrovo Slim offers the Greek
version--that is, the version offered by the powerful--without bothering to
corroborate it. The section's ending is fragmented: note Cyprian's two
questions, the latter taking him home to another rewriting of history via
the vicarious pleasures of popular theatre. Vesna inserts herself into the
narrative here, informing the reader of her presence throughout.