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Fore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com

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More oxford <strong>books</strong> @ www.OxfordeBook.<strong>com</strong><strong>Fore</strong> <strong>more</strong> <strong>urdu</strong> <strong>books</strong> <strong>visit</strong> <strong>www.4Urdu</strong>.<strong>com</strong>FROM RUSSIA TO ROOSEVELT 13princesses. She filled her diary with invective against the Communists,further bolstered by her father’s position. Their new connection wasa source of great joy for Alisa, who remembered it was “only after webegan to be political allies that I really felt a real love for him. . . . ” Shealso discovered that her father had an “enormous approval of my intelligence,”which further confirmed her emerging sense of self. 9As in Petrograd, she remained unpopular with her classmates. Theywere eager to ask for her help on school assignments, but Alisa was notincluded in parties or invited on dates. Underneath their rejection Alisasensed a certain resentment. Did her classmates dislike her because shewas smarter? Were they penalizing her for her virtues? It was the firstglimmer of an idea that would surface later, in her fiction. “I think thatis what is the matter with my relationships,” she began to believe, butworried this was “too easy” an explanation. 10Most likely, her classmates simply found Alisa abrasive and argumentative.She had an admitted tendency to force conversations, a violentintensity to her beliefs, an unfortunate inability to stop herself fromarguing. But from her perspective, their jealousy had forced her into alonely exile. Alisa was starting to understand herself as a heroine unfairlypunished for what was best in her. Later she would <strong>com</strong>e to see envy andresentment as fundamental social and political problems.Turning to her interior world, Alisa became concerned not onlywith what she thought but how she thought. In her preteen years shehad taken her family’s casual attitude toward religion a step farther,deciding that she was an atheist. Now she discovered the two corollariesof her unbelief: logic and reason. When a teacher introducedthe class to Aristotle and syllogisms it was “as if a light bulb went off.”Consistency was the principle that grabbed her attention, not surprisinggiven her unpredictable and frightening life. Consistency as Alisaunderstood it was the road to truth, the means to prevail in the heatedarguments she loved, the one method to determine the validity of herthoughts. 11Three years after leaving Petrograd, in 1921, the Rosenbaumsreturned. There was nowhere left to go, for Crimea and the rest of thecountry had fallen to the Communists. Anna had begged Zinovy to

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