Every Month a Picture
Her only fault is that she found herself in a homeland whose people and government have agreed on nothing so well as they have agreed on organizing chaos...
And her crime is that she respects time and order. Here is her story:
She was summoned to give testimony in a complaint brought against an adolescent boy, and the time fixed for her appearance at the court was nine o'clock sharp in the morning... But she soon discovered that she would be waiting outside the interrogation room, with the herd of humanity squatting on the stones or the dirt, for hours before anyone thought of calling her in... And when she went up to the clerk (or she does not know what to call him) to inquire what had happened, he shook his head loftily and said: We fix a time for your attendance so that you remain at our disposal (sic) for as long as we please; and we may carry out our pleasure tomorrow... or whenever God wills...
She looked about her for anything to appeal to, but she remembered that she was in the Palace of Justice, and that she must bridle her tongue — for here neither understanding nor criticism is permitted!...
The interrogation passed in peace, and the turn of the trial came; and once again the time of her attendance was fixed at "eight sharp" — but the honorable judge does not appear before nine. What, then, is the meaning of fixing a time?... They explained it to her afterward by saying: there is a full hour's difference between the court's time and ordinary time... And once again she found herself waiting... God have mercy.
I can understand that the hour when a session or a trial will end cannot be fixed — but why this deception, this deluding of people into believing that we run by the clock, and precisely?... And if the exalted court chooses to follow the chaos of the street, then why weary the clocks?...
Nor is this story an only child... You hear tales the moment you
step out of the shell of seclusion... Here is the following anecdote:
A lady went to the Ministry of Health and asked for a doctor who works there. She was told he was on the first floor, and she searched for him in vain until she came upon one of the ushers, who shook his head, denying the report, and assured her that the doctor's office was on the third floor... So she climbed the stairs, only for the third-floor usher to tell her that he was downstairs... And so the poor woman spent an hour between "upstairs and downstairs," until God guided her at last to the room of the doctor she sought.
Is such chaos permissible, good people?... And in the highest offices of the State?... We await an answer!