All the old, traditional views that I had uncritically accepted as a child evaporated like smoke. The world lay before me, simple and clear, and I was standing in the midst of that world, serene and self-confident. There was nothing mysterious, frightening, incomprehensible left in the world for me, and I thought, like Goethe’s Wagner, that I knew a great deal already and would in due course know everything . . . It seemed to me that there were no gaps in my worldview, that doubts and hesitations were no longer possible, and I had found, once and for all, firm ground to stand on . . . Now, looking back [in 1926 in Moscow], I realize that that was the best time of my life. Never again would I experience the kind of intense exhilaration that is produced by the first awakening of the mind and the first revelation of truth. 63 With the help of an awakened mind, European dress, fluency in Russian, and another, often non-Jewish, mentor, large numbers of Jewish autodidacts and circle veterans moved into one of the “little islands of freedom” within the Russian radical youth culture (where they met, among others, the Russian- speaking children of previous migrants). “They talked to me as to an equal!” wrote Abraham Cahan. “As if I were one of their own! No distinction between Jew and gentile! In the spirit of true equality and brotherhood!” The circles’ cause, whatever their particular brand of socialism, was to remake the world in their own image, to topple all fathers and usher in the kingdom of eternal youth. Life took on new meaning. Our society was built on injustices that could be erased. All could be equal. All could be brothers! Just as all were equal and brothers in Volodka’s home. It could be done! It must be done! All must be ready to sacrifice even life itself for this new kind of world. I divided the world into two groups: “they” and “we.” I looked on “them” with pity and scorn. I thought of any friend of mine who was one of “them” as an unfortunate being. At the same time my new belief brought out my better nature, made me more tolerant, led me to speak gently even when mixing scorn with sympathy. A kind of religious ecstasy took hold of me. I did not recognize my former self. 64 Mandelstam’s mother, “the first in her family to master the clear and pure Russian sounds,” was in Vilna at about the same time: a bit more literary and less revolutionary, perhaps, but could one really tell the difference?