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Kondratiev the hypocrite, resplendent in his old uniform, marching, head bowed as if in profound sorrow. That had been the excuse for his reappearance proffered by Aleyev and Suvorov: that Orgonev had been such an old and dear friend that it would be an insult to Orgonev's family were Kondratiev not to appear to pay his respects. Cherny was unconvinced. Kondratiev and Orgonev had long been rivals for power in the right-wing movement. No one had ever been an "old and dear friend" of either man. |
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"Could he have picked a colder day to be buried?" David Milstein walked beside the President. As Finance Minister, Milstein had been obliged to attend the funeral of a Hero of Socialist Science. The irony of his presence had a fine, piercing point. At one time in his life, General-Academician Mikhail Ivanovich Orgonev had tried very hard to purge all. Jews from the Academy of Soviet Science. His plan failed, but he had continued to use his position of power to deny them rank and perquisites of academy membership. |
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"March in his cortege?" David Milstein had commented sarcastically when asked. "I would rather dance on his grave, the old Jew-baiter." But in the end, Milstein was present, as were all the officers of the state resident in Moscow for the winter. |
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Cherny felt a chill as he watched the rifle-balancing, goose-stepping Kremlin guardsmen under the personal command of their colonel in chief, Ivan Temko. Temko had made a great show of greeting Piotr Kondratiev, embracing him. Was Temko a recent convert, or a longtime member of Soyuz? He shivered, whether in response to the cold or to the thought of another entrant into the ring of hostile faces surrounding him day in and day out, he did not know. |
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The head of the procession entered Red Square, and the bells in the tower of St. Basil's began to toll. The great expanse in front of the church was almost empty. Ironies abound, Cherny thought. Orgonev had been a lifelong atheist and in the old days, a despoiler of churches. He had done so to abol- |
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