My fondest memory of Janos will always remain the Rodney Hilton conference at Birmingham, at which whenever a speaker referred to "the transition from feudalism to capitalism," Janos very ostentatiously left the room to light up a cigarette outside. On one of these occasions, when I joined him outside he told me the story of meeting a Soviet scholar at a conference in Rome who said to him of the same cliché, "We talk that way because we have to. Why do they?" When in the mood for irony at some international meeting, I always looked for J. B.
Fred Cheyette
