BETWEEN US MADONNAS...

Let us test your wits.
"Russian poet?"
"Pushkin."
"Part of a face?"
"Nose."
"Domestic fowl?"
"Chicken!.."
"Great! And now for the grand prize. A woman with an infant in her arms?"

 A Madonna, of course. This is even a surer cinch than Pushkin: for in that case a difference in taste is possible. But in this case even a difference in religion does not matter. Just the contrary, if the lady bears pronounced pagan features, the image becomes even more piquant. For instance, The Adygei Madonna. Strikingly novel is the picture of suckling the infant under the hardest circumstances, say, on the front line (The Guerrilla Madonna) or in prison (Madonna of the Strict Regime). Even in the country of total atheism, "the broad-shouldered Virgin Maries" with babe in arms enjoyed a special status and privileges, such as two half-hour breaks during cotton picking to breast-feed her baby, or the edge of a hard berth on a crammed commuter train, or even the possibility of drying diapers on their own body in resettlement camps. And in famine years, you could breast-feed your baby until he/she was three years old.

Enough thoughts about the bad things. Thank God, no deportations, no shoot-outs. One can go in quite civilized fashion to see an exhibition even with a child (you should not say, "I'm going to the exhibition, and you stay home and baby-sit..."). The burden of your own choice is not felt. Look, darling, that woman also has a dolly.