LION RAMPANT

200 paratroopers in Kosovo are stationed at the airfield as a symbol of Russian military might. "The Prague option, you know," one politician commented. Oh, we understand this symbol! The Prague option, the Budapest option, the Berlin option. A Soviet liberator soldier gives a German young girl a piece of bread, takes her in his arms, and towers over Berlin as a salient and gardant guarantor of peace.

But everyone wants to do something: take rescued girls in his arms, present berets to boys, see girls kissing flags and running to meet him, to watch them casting bouquets at the armor. It is the right of the big and strong to divide the world into zones and to be in all the lionesque heraldic postures simultaneously. What is then left for the smaller beasts? To nap in the bosom of the bigger ones and rely on their grace and common sense, on them striking a cordial deal and refraining from putting up new Berlin Walls, on peace and justice really being their principal goal, and on them giving a piece of bread, at last.

All we can hope for is that both big and small will go home to calm down and take the dormant pose. It is hard even for a lion to perpetually stand.