Dinner with Valery Tarsis

Russians “Deeply Christian”

He was in New York for a few days and friends brought us together for dinner. The reassuring thing about refugees from Communist lands is that these four decades of Communist saturation can evaporate instantly. Tarsis, at sixty, is sprightly and full of energy; he is up-to-date on all literary events, loves Italy and feminine audiences—and wonders why the West did not destroy Soviet power ten years ago. He turned to me: “You know, I have many Hungarian friends. We all wept when Budapest was crushed.”