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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 3, No. 6

Literary Columns

page break

Literary Columns

Not. in Bright Cities

Literary Columns

Now swiftly frost furs the rigid bone
not in bright cities empty of aimless feet
hushed in a fear deserted by the years:
the dead only there, death alone in the valley.

The child laughs at the deliberate bomb
for there is the comfort of the accepted response,
effortless and primordial as a sacrament
to dull the echoes in the impartial ice.

Let us praise then the treasure in the doomed vault;
by this we breathe, it is fast to determine commandments;
see the patient philosopher, dampened by the absolute,
smile gently at the crudity of the empty bellied.

Prayer avails not against them, but there is strength
and light cast on the march, not the desire:
seek watchword, unready, all else is empty:
there are shreds of fire wakening the slow dawn.

R.L.M.

Sad Case of John Willy or J.D.K.Z.

One day, after a midday snooze in the sun, John Willy came down from the roof of the Biology Block to find sentries mounted over the laboratories and the corridors filled with men. Outwardly they resembled Wellington City Council Milkmen, but John Willy correctly surmised that they were Storm Troopers, dressed in field grey, who had managed to gain control of one of Wellington's [unclear: Mey] positions.

He felt a desire, to run, as he was not Very keen on being the Next Victim of Brutal Nazi Aggression. But a sentry challenged him.

"Friend or foe?"

"I'm not quite sure," said John Willy who was a Communist, and who thought that under the circumstances he had better Get In Touch With Moscow.

"Do you," said the sentry, "support the British Government in its aggression of my Fatherland?"

"I'm not quite sure of that either," replied John Willy, "but as a University student it is, of course, impossible for me to believe that the British Government is ever right in its actions or policies. At any rate, it is one big social democratic compromise, and it's awfully wicked to compromise."

The sentry said "Pass friend."

John tried to make his way downstairs with the object of slipping out a side door. He was soon accosted by another in[unclear: veder] who looked as if he might be trying to sell [unclear: Extray] tickets or shares in a Tasmanian consultation. "Do you belong to our local branch of the Nazi Party?" said the uniformed man.

"Well, I couldn't really say, "countered John Willy, who thought that the Stud Ass fee covered everything, but who had a suspicion that the Nazi Party had not yet been affiliated. "Then couldn't you think?" said the military man, assuming a sinister air.

John Willy was taken aback. "Think? See here! During the term my time was occupied by essays, exercises, lectures, and Daventry Broadcasts. Then there was the Revue. And now the holidays are to be permeated with the hideous insistence of insidious professorial propaganda on the question of Terms. You page break should know that no University student has time to think."

The military man's aspect changed. He beamed at John Willy and said that, as he was not in the habit of thinking, he was obviously a fitting recruit for the Party.

The student pursued his course, but found the outside door bolted. Ambling into the Cafeteria he found a Staff Meeting in progress. The Field Marshall was addressing his subordinates. "No doubt," he was saying, "you will recollect that when last we met in the [unclear: Wilhelmstrasse] we were discussing the collaboration afforded us by the local Pacifists." One of the Generals interrupted him with the remark that personally he admired Pacifists. "Quite right," said the F.M. "They make their convictions fit their courage. Then they automatically have the courage of their convictions and are noble people."

Deciding that he was de trop, John Willy moved away. At the foot of the stairs he met Mr. Brook, who was flourishing a "Detour sign. By following this and other signs he found himself in the Library. Here he found a beautiful girl writing. Although he did not know it, she was an enchantress in disguise. No one had invited her to the Capping Ball, and she bore a grudge against Victoria College and Society.

John whispered "what are you writing, my pretty maid?"

"I am writing a thesis, sir," she said.

"Wouldn't you like to try my fountain pen?" she continued.

As soon as John Willy took hold of it he pricked his finger with, the nib. Immediately everyone in the College fell sound asleep. (It was, however, only a matter of comparison - sleepy, sleepier, sound asleep).

Prince Charming had gone away with the First Echelon, so the Wellington police came up instead and arrested the sleeping invaders. They also wake up John Willy and the Academic Staff, neither of whom was very grateful. The former was, quite naturally, under the impression that he had been attending a lecture, while the latter thought it had been delivering them.

G.P.G.S.

Defence of an Escapist

I saw Balalaika. And I thanked all the gods that were and all those still to be, that in a world so mad as ours, we still have Hollywood. For Hollywood may be mad, but there the madness takes a pleasant form.

Balalaika was not a great picture: it had many faults, aesthetic, historic, and others beside, no doubt. The highbrows and the pedants and the know-alls have already pointed out all of them. But I am greatly heartened when I think that I am not a highbrow, nor an intellectual, for their mission in life appears to be [unclear: allied] in some sense with Hitler's desire to smash and hart the simple things of the world. I do admire and love much that the [unclear: hbrows] profess to admire, but I bitterly resent the cult they have developed—refusing to recognise that a true lover of the beautiful and the good may find much to love in things other than the highest only.

Escapism has been much decried. But why? If, by some means of escape we are enabled to face again with renewed courage and fresh vigor the problems of to-day, why deny ourselves such an escape?

Balalaika was an escape, definitely. I enjoyed it because it gave me an hour and a half of romance and colour——a simple story of love amid the adversities of life: surely that is the oldest and most universal story, and the finest. Absurd to make Nelson Eddy a Russian prince, you say? No doubt, Yet for me he was a Russin prince for an hour and a half. And in a world of improbable realities, may we not be permitted a few improbable fantasies as well? This is not the time for grim social documents, stern dramas and poignant tragedies. Against a background of tragedy (one of