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A SCREEN ADAPTATION OF A TEXT BY VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV

Zoyichka!

Zoya! Come inside!

Careful, or you'll slip and fall.

Be that as it may, but now let's take a different path, dear Nikolai.

Are you ready to follow me?

Yes, I am.

Let's return to the story of the two monks.

Well then, back to Alexandria.

But that's not what interests me.

We follow the same path,

the same conclusions, but we remove the essence,

that is, the existence of God and the Devil.

We proceed from the next postulate: Neither God nor the devil exists.

What interests me here

is that if we believe that evil comes from within,

then,

which of the two men would have taken this path,

the three days of debauchery in Alexandria, in your opinion?

Which indeed?

I don't know, it's just a hypothesis.

It would be interesting to assume that probably

the initiative would be taken by him

who feels no regret, does not repent,

does not fall prey to despair.

Do you remember the story?

Sure, the story goes like this: after spending three days in Alexandria…

They return to the desert.

- Together. - Both of them.

On the way, one of them laments, flagellates himself…

- He fades… - Completely…

He cannot forget what happened in Alexandria…

- Whereas the other… - The other sings psalms

as he goes. And then back in their caves,

one continues to repent, to flagellate himself,

finally he decides to return to Alexandria.

- He decides to leave. - He decides.

He leaves everything behind.

Because he believes that after succumbing to debauchery,

there is no going back.

I think the general is leaving.

Shall we see him out?

In three days he embarks for Marseilles.

For Toulon.

Toulon?

Andrey Nikolaevich, maybe I should wake him?

Yes.

Fetch a bucket of cold water.

Well,

I should be leaving.

I'll be right back.

Why shouldn't a modern army bear the title “Christ-loving”?

A title!

In that case, is white or black a title?

Is sweet or bitter a title?

Is brave or cowardly a title?

It is not I who says it, but all law-abiding people.

I beg your pardon! But tell me, is there still

a glorious and Christ-loving Russian army?

Why quibble over words?

Ingrida meant something by “Christ-loving army”.

Thank you, Madeleine.

This is what I meant:

Since the beginning of time,

every military man, soldier or marshal,

has known that he serves a great and good cause.

Not only a useful or necessary cause,

such as emptying the privy or doing the laundry,

but in the loftier sense, a good, noble and honourable cause,

a cause always served by the best men: the elite, the rulers, the heroes.

Our cause has always been blessed by the Church,

all have glorified it.

Suddenly we discover that we must forget all that

and radically alter our opinion of ourselves

and of our place under the sun.

The cause we once proudly served

is declared wicked and baleful,

at odds with our Lord's commandments and human sentiments,

a misfortune and a dreadful evil,

that all nations must unite against it,

and its ultimate demise is only a matter of time.

Have you not heard the voices that condemn war and military service

as vestiges of ancient cannibalism?

Have I heard?

Of course I have! And I've read it too. In several languages.

But the voices of which you speak,

they were, to be frank, nothing but hot air.

We heard them and then forgot them.

But now things have totally changed.

That is why I ask what are we to do?

How should I, or rather any soldier, regard himself:

As a real human

or as nature's Quasimodo?

Am I allowed to have self-respect because I served a just cause?

Or should I be aghast at what I have done,

should I repent and beg all the civilians

to forgive me now that I am proscribed?

Begone, Michel Kutuzoff!

There was a great man!

What an odd way to pose the question!

As if we had asked the military to do something extraordinary.

The new requirements apply not to them, but to diplomats and other civilians,

who do not care if they are proscribed,

just as they do not care how much you love Christ.

This alone is demanded of them:

to obey the orders of your superiors unquestioningly.

As you are not interested in military matters,

of course you get, as you just said, to an odd conclusion.

It is obvious you don't know that in some cases

a superior's orders

mean neither waiting nor asking for orders.

Which is to say?

Which is to say: Imagine that on my superiors' orders

I am placed in charge of an entire military region.

This means that my mission is

to command the armies in my charge in whatever way appropriate,

that I must foster in them a certain morale,

I must act above their will in a prudent way,

I must tune their feelings within a certain range,

in short, I must educate them, in the spirit of their task.

Therefore I am allowed, among other things, to give others…

to give orders to the troops in my region,

on my own account and taking full responsibility.

If I asked high command to dictate what orders to give

or even to provide me with guidelines,

wouldn't I be thought a silly old fool

and then relegated to the reserve?

This means that I myself must instil a certain spirit in my armies,

which will have been endorsed and confirmed

by the high command.

But even so,

questions on this subject are nothing but stupidity or insolence.

But this spirit,

the same, in essence, from Sargon and Assurbanipal

to Wilhelm II,

is now all of a sudden challenged.

Until recently, I knew I must foster the military spirit in my troops,

so a soldier would be ready to strike the enemy or die.

And to do so, we must be convinced

that war is sacred.

But now, for no reason, we deprive them of this conviction

and, as the erudite would say,

martial deeds are deprived of their moral-religious authority.

All this is dreadfully exaggerated.

Nothing permits us to say that opinions have changed so much.

On the one hand,

everyone agrees that war is bad

and the more seldom it occurs the better.

On the other hand, serious-minded people

understand that even today it is an unavoidable evil.

It is not a case of abolishing war,

but rather of gradually confining it

within narrower bounds.

But, in principle,

the opinion of war has not altered.

It remains an unavoidable evil, a calamity that must be borne.

Nothing more?

Yes.

Have you ever cast a glance at the Orthodox calendar?

At the calendar?

Have you noticed what saints are to be found there?

All kind of saints.

What of their occupations?

Every variety, I suppose.

Actually, they do not differ very much.

How so? Could it be they are all soldiers?

Not all of them, but half.

Again you exaggerate.

Certainly…

It is not a case of classifying them for the sake of statistics.

I mean only that all the saints of our Russian Church

fall under just two categories.

They are either monks of various rank,

or princes, who, in those days, were definitely soldiers.

We have no other saints of the male sex.

Either monks or soldiers.

But you forget the holy fools!

Not at all!

But the holy fools are a different kind of monk.

They are to monasticism what Cossacks are to the army.

If among the Russian saints you can find me just one priest,

merchant, state official,

secretary, bourgeois or peasant,

in short, any occupation besides monk or soldier,

then I'll give you my entire winnings the next time I go to Monte Carlo.

Keep your treasure and half your calendar!

Explain to me just what you mean to insinuate by this discovery?

Do you mean only monks and soldiers can provide a moral example?

You are not even close.

I myself know virtuous people among the clergy,

among bankers, public officials and peasants.

And the most virtuous person I can remember

was the nanny who served in the household of a friend.

But that to one side.

I mentioned the saints because I wish to know why there are

so many soldiers among the monks…

favoured over every other occupation,

if we have always regarded the art of war as a tolerable evil…

It is obvious that all Christians,

whose thinking is reflected,

and not only the Russian ones,

because in France it's more or less the same,

not only honour,

but honour especially the military profession.

Of all occupations, only that of arms was deemed capable

of elevating the best specimens to the rank of saints.

Which is at odds with the current anti-war campaign, my dear Edouard.

There you have it!

Did I say there has been no change?

It's obvious it is already happening.

The sacred halo

that once crowned the army, in the eyes of the mob, is fading.

That is where we are heading.

But who, in effect, will be harmed by it?

The clergy, probably, since only they deal in haloes.

Rest assured, dear Edouard, pious accommodations have already begun.

For our magazine I follow religious literature.

In two issues I found that Christianity condemns war.

- Impossible! - I couldn't believe it either.

- I can show you. - Show me what?

You see?

Although the absurd militarist system is doomed to extinction,

the army will be preserved.

As long as it is tolerated and seen as indispensable,

we will demand of it the same military virtues.

You're apt to butcher the cow and then demand its milk.

Who will give you the military virtues you demand,

when the principal virtue,

without which the others matter not a whit, is courage?

That doesn't stand up if we don't believe in the holiness of our cause.

How is that possible,

if we declare war to be perfidy and murder,

tolerable only in the extreme, when it is unavoidable?

We don't demand soldiers accept such a thing,

they only have to believe themselves the best in the world!

Nikolai has already explained it to you.

Don't loot our wallets, that's all!

Where are we, on the moon?

Would you keep soldiers in an absolute void?

If military service is deemed an unavoidable evil for the time being,

no one will devote his life to a military career.

Except perhaps some nature's rejects, who have nowhere else to go.

I have always thought that, after the introduction of military service,

the dissolution of armies and then states themselves,

will only be a question of time.

A time not far away, given the current haste of history.

Perhaps you are right.

I am certain that you are right.

Although such an idea has never crossed my mind.

Marvellous! Just think of it!

In its extreme form, militarism gives rise to compulsory military service.

Thanks to this, not only will militarism perish,

but also its old age foundations. Wonderful!

How nice that Olga has brightened up.

So far she has displayed a gloominess unworthy of a true Christian.

Because there is too much sadness around us.

The only joy left is the thought that reason will triumph.

It is plain that in Europe and Russia militarism is self-devouring.

But what joy and what triumph will spring from it, it's hard to tell.

Do you doubt that war and militarism are an absolute evil

from which mankind must liberate itself?

That the total and immediate destruction of this cannibalism

will constitute the triumph of reason and the good?

I am convinced of the opposite.

How so?

War is not an absolute evil

and peace is not an absolute good.

Or put simply, a good war is as possible as a bad peace.

Now I see how your position differs from Ingrida's.

She thinks war is always good and peace always bad.

Not at all!

I too understand perfectly

that war can sometimes be a very bad thing,

particularly when we are defeated, as, for example, at Austerlitz.

And peace can be a wonderful thing,

such as that of Nystad or Kuchuk-Kainardji.

Behold a variation on the famous words of the Kaffir or Hottentot

who told a missionary

he understood the difference between good and evil:

Good is when I steal another man's women and cattle,

and evil is when he steals mine.

- Both the African and I were joking. - Obviously.

He unwittingly, I deliberately.

What about you, Edouard, who are so well educated,

what do you have to say about war, from the moral standpoint?

I wouldn't let scholasticism and metaphysics

alter such a clear and historically determined problem!

Clear from what point of view?

Mine, the typical, European one,

about to be adopted by educated people everywhere.

Forgive me if I laugh!

Evidently, it consists in viewing everything as relative

and not allowing any differentiation

between what we are and are not permitted,

between good and evil. That's it, isn't it?

My dear Olga, such an argument is of no help in solving the problem.

Take me, for example,

I allow that morally, good and evil are absolutely opposed.

But it's clear to me that war and peace do not fall under this category.

You cannot view war

as only black, and peace as only white.

A contradiction in terms will then arise.

If something evil in itself, for example, murder,

can become good in the case of war, as you say,

where does that leave the absolute difference between good and evil?

How much easier you make your task!

All murder is an absolute evil,

war is murder,

therefore war is an absolute evil.

It's a first-category syllogism.

Except that you forget, my dear Olga,

that both premises, both the major and the minor,

have still to be proven.

Consequently, the conclusion is left hanging too.

Didn't I say we've reverted to scholasticism?

What exactly are we talking about?

You therefore argue that to kill, to take someone's life,

is in any given situation an absolute evil?

Without a doubt.

But is to be killed

an absolute evil?

For the Hottentots it is, obviously.

But were we not talking about moral evil?

This exists only in the deeds of a rational being,

deeds that depend on his will, rather than chance.

To be killed is therefore the same as to die of cholera or influenza.

Not only it's not an absolute evil, but it's not even an evil.

Socrates and the Stoics knew it already.

I would leave the ancients out of this.

The absolute you cite, in morally assessing murder, is shaky.

From what you say,

absolute evil means to do to a man something that is not evil in itself.

As you like, but it is shaky.

But let us leave this aside,

otherwise we really do revert to scholasticism.

So, in the case of a murder,

the evil is not the physical act of taking someone's life,

rather it resides in the moral cause, in the murderer's intention to do evil.

- Is that not so? - Evidently.

Without the intention,

it would not be murder, but misfortune or carelessness.

Therefore, without the intention, it would be the same as botched surgery.

But we can imagine a different situation,

where the intention does not take as its main aim the killing of a man,

but consents to murder in a case of extreme necessity.

Would such a murder be an absolute evil?

Certainly, since there was the intention to kill.

Might the intention to kill not coincide with the intention to do evil

and therefore might the crime not be an absolute evil,

even subjectively speaking?

I have heard this argument a thousand times!

That father who, in a deserted place,

sees a brute hurl himself at his innocent daughter,

ready to subject her to a base villainy,

and who, finding no other solution, kills the attacker.

For adding effect, I'll say that the daughter is a child.

What is remarkable is not that you've heard it a thousand times,

but that nobody has heard those who think like you

put forward a valid objection to this simple argument.

- What objection? - There you go!

Well,

if you don't want to put forward any objection,

then demonstrate straightforwardly and positively

that in every case, without exception,

not to use force in the battle with evil

is better than to use it and to risk killing an evil-doer.

Is there a specific proof for an isolated case?

Once you allow that, in general, murder is evil in a moral sense?

It is clear that, in every case, it will still be an evil.

Nobody objects that in general, it is better not to kill than to kill.

But the question concerns particular cases.

If the general rule is “thou shalt not kill”,

it is therefore absolute

and without no exceptions or individual circumstances.

I cannot accept that the problem be put so formally.

Let us say that in this exceptional case,

which you have invented as an argument,

let us allow that it is better to kill than not to kill.

Evidently, I do not allow it, but let us say you are right.

Let us even say that the given situation is not fiction, but reality,

although it is extremely rare and exceptional.

But what we are talking about here is war, a universal phenomenon.

Do you contend that Napoleon

found himself in a situation similar

to that of the father forced to defend his daughter from a monster?

An improvement on earlier. Bravo, Olga!

You skillfully avoid an annoying question.

Let us rework the example, lest the details blunt its meaning.

No need for the father or the little girl.

Parental love will lead the father to kill the villain,

without wondering

whether he does so in accordance with the supreme moral principle.

Therefore, instead of a father,

let us take a childless moralist,

before whose very eyes a defenseless creature is attacked by a vile brute.

According to you,

ought he to stand aloof and preach virtue,

while the hellish brute tortures his victim?

Will the moralist

feel no moral obligation to stop the brute by force,

even at risk of killing him?

And if, on the contrary,

he allows the crime to be committed, in keeping with his fine maxims,

do you not think his conscience will reprove him

and he will be ashamed of himself to the point of revulsion?

Perhaps the moralist will feel everything you say

if he does not believe in the reality of moral order.

Or if he has forgotten that God is to be found not in might but in right.

Very well said.

What will you say to that, Nikolai?

I will say that I would like it to be said better.

That is, more directly, simply and to the point.

Did you mean that a moralist who believes in divine justice

ought, without stopping the brute by force,

to pray to God that He prevent the commission of the evil,

either through a moral miracle,

for example the criminal's contrition,

or through a physical miracle, such as his sudden paralysis?

No need of paralysis.

The villain might take fright

or something might divert him in one way or the other.

It is not important what.

The miracle resides not in the event,

but in its causal connection with the prayer and its moral object.

At all events, Olga's solution for preventing a crime

is to pray to God that He perform a miracle.

Whence that conclusion?

Since I believe the world is guided by a good and rational principle,

I also believe that the world moves only in accordance with that principle,

which is to say, the will of God.

Forgive me, dear Olga, but how old are you?

If you know the answer, why ask the question?

For dialogue's sake, I assure you.

Let us say twenty-six.

A little older.

Then you will perhaps have seen, heard, or read in the newspapers

that evil and immoral acts are committed everywhere in the world.

Yes. So?

In other words, the moral order, justice and the divine will,

do not come about by themselves.

Clearly,

if evil exists, then the gods either cannot or will not prevent it.

Therefore, the gods do not exist as a good and omnipotent force.

- Not a new idea, but fair. - How can you say so?

See where our conversation has led!

Philosophy bewilders the mind.

Because it is a false philosophy, my dear Ingrida!

As if the divine will depended on how we view good and evil.

It does not depend on any representation

but rather it is closely connected to a true notion of the good.

Otherwise, if good and evil are equally indifferent to the deity,

then you contradict yourself once and for all.

And why is that, may I ask?

Because if the deity is indifferent that a vile brute,

driven by bestial passion, defiles a defenseless creature,

then the deity would not oppose that person among us

who, out of pity for the victim, destroyed the beast.

For you will hardly uphold so absurd a notion that

killing an innocent creature would not be evil in the eyes of God,

whereas killing a vile brute would be evil.

It seems absurd to you because you view it from the wrong direction.

From the moral standpoint,

not the victim but the murderer is important.

You called the malefactor a “brute”,

that is, a man without reason or conscience.

What moral evil can then exist in his actions?

But do we speak of a “brute” in the literal sense?

It would be as if I told my daughter: “That's silly, my angel,”

and you chided me that angels aren't silly!

This is off the point…

Forgive me, but I take it the brigand was called a “brute” metaphorically

and that he possesses neither tail nor hooves.

But we refer to his literal lack of reason and conscience.

A man of conscience could never consent to such a thing!

You're playing on words again!

It is clear that a man who behaves like a brute

loses his reason and conscience, in that he no longer hears their voice.

But that he altogether lacks reason and conscience

is something you will have to demonstrate.

Until then,

I shall continue to believe that the man-brute

differs from us two not by the absence of reason and conscience,

but because he acts despite them,

driven by his brutish whims.

A selfsame brute is latent in each of us,

but as a rule, we keep it chained.

That man released his brute and now obeys it.

He has a chain, but does not use it.

Precisely.

And if Olga does not agree, defeat her with her own weapon!

If the villain is a mere brute without reason or conscience,

to kill him would be the same as killing a wolf or a tiger attacking a man.

As far as I know, the Humane Society has not yet outlawed it.

Have you forgotten that, whatever the man's condition,

be it atrophy of the reason and conscience

or conscious immorality,

if such a thing is at all possible,

then it concerns not him, but you yourselves.

For your reason and your conscience have not atrophied,

nor do you wish to disobey their commands.

Therefore you will not kill that man, whoever he may be.

Of course I would not kill him if my reason and conscience forbade it.

But imagine they told me something different,

something that seemed to me more reasonable and honest.

Interesting. Please go on!

Firstly,

the reason and conscience are able to count to three.

Is that so!

Wherefore the reason and conscience,

unless they wish to lie, will not say “two” instead of “three”…

- Nikolai, please… - I don't follow.

In your opinion,

reason and conscience tell me only about myself and the brigand,

whom I am not allowed to harm.

But there is also a third, equally important person:

the victim of aggression, who demands my help.

You keep forgetting her.

But conscience does not, and God's will is that I save the victim,

while sparing the attacker as best I can.

But her I must assist at any cost.

By verbal persuasion, if possible,

if not, then by force,

and if my hands are tied, there remains but one solution:

prayer.

As to the solution, I leave it to you to decide which is the better.

To me, one thing is certain,

I have to save the victim, that is what my conscience tells me.

Breach to the centre! Hurrah!

Well, Nikolai,

I take care not to have too broad a conscience.

Mine tells me, quite bluntly, not to kill, full stop.

It seems to me that our discussion has made no progress.

Suppose I agreed with you

that anyone might allow himself to kill, what then?

Do you think that Tamburlaine, or Alexander the Great, or Lord Kitchener

and their armies killed to save innocents from evil-doers?

Even though comparing Tamburlaine with Alexander the Great

risks affecting the progress of our discussion,

and inasmuch as this is the second time you have rushed into the topic,

allow me a historical reference that will help us see the connection

between the question of personal defence and defence of the state.

The place is Kiev, the time, the 12th century.

The crown princes

who, it seems, shared your opinion of war

and chose to fight only in self-defence,

refused to go to war against the Polovtsians.

They did not want to subject their people to the calamities of war.

To this, the great Prince Vladimir the Monomachos replied:

“You pity the yokels, but forget that once spring arrives… “

Nikolai, please, mind your language!

- But it's from the chronicle! - It doesn't matter.

Since you don't know it by heart, say it in your own words.

Anyway, it sounds stupid: “once spring arrives”.

As if what comes next is: “Flowers bloom, nightingales trill.”

And from your mouth…

a “yokel” pops out!

Very well.

“Once spring arrives, the peasant will go out to plough.

The Polovtsian will come, kill the peasant,

steal his horse,

then hordes of Polovtsians will come, massacre the peasants,

enslave their wives and children,

steal their cattle, and burn down their village.

Don't you want to protect them? I do.

That's why I call you to fight the Polovtsians.”

Ashamed, the princes now obeyed,

and under Vladimir Monomachos the country knew peace.

But later they reverted to their pacifism,

giving themselves up to scandalous living.

For Russia, it all ended with the Mongol yoke,

and as for the descendants of those princes,

it ended with the feast served by history in the form of Ivan the Terrible.

I don't understand.

First, you describe a situation none of us is familiar with

and probably never will be,

then you cite a Vladimir Monomachos who probably never existed

and who is anyway none of our concern.

Speak for yourself, Olga!

But Olga, aren't you a Rurikovitch?

Yes, I am.

According to you, I ought to be interested in Rurik, Sineus and Truvor.

Don't get me wrong, but he who doesn't know his ancestors

is like a child who thinks he was delivered by the stork.

What about those unfortunates who have no ancestors?

You know…

This morning, before coming down for breakfast,

Andrei Nikolaevich handed me a letter,

then he made this confession out of the blue:

“Only once in my life have I felt complete moral satisfaction,

“even a form of ecstasy.

“And this good deed has been and always will be

“my most beautiful and purest memory.”

But his only good deed was a crime,

and not a minor one,

for in 15 minutes he slaughtered more than 1,000 men.

And where is the good in that?

It is not easy for me to talk about it.

Forgive me, but I cannot recount it without great emotion,

so strongly did it shake me.

Tell us, Ingrida!

Better I read you a passage from his letter.

It concerns cannons

and the last war against the Turks.

He was in the Cossack army. After 3 October…

3 October?

The Battle of Aladja Dagh.

Listen.

“I had with me the dragoons of Nizhny Novgorod,

300 Cossacks from Kuban,

and a battery of mounted artillery.

The terrain was desolate.

Up the mountains it was beautiful,

but down in the valley there were just burnt villages and barren fields.

One day, it was October 28,

I arrived in a valley where,

by the map, there was an Armenian village.

At the entrance to the village there was a bend in the road.

My Cossacks were already there, standing stock-still.

I galloped up to them.

Before I saw it, I knew from the stench of roasted flesh,

that the Bashi-Bazouks had left behind their kitchen.

They captured a convoy of Armenians unable to save themselves,

and dealt with them in their own fashion.

They lit fires under the carts, having tied the Armenians to them.

Some upright, some upside down,

some on their backs, some on their stomachs,

hanging over the flames,

roasted over a low flame.

The women's breasts had been chopped off, their bellies split open.

I won't go into details.

Apart from one, which I can picture even now.

A woman, stretched out on her back,

her neck and shoulders bound to the cart axle,

so that she wouldn't be able to turn her head.

She had neither been burned nor flayed alive,

only her face was mutilated,

it was plain she had died of terror.

In front of her

was a stake planted in the ground,

to which a naked baby was tied.

Undoubtedly her son.

Completely burned, no eyes in his sockets.

Next to him smouldered a charcoal grill.

At first, I was gripped by deathly grief,

I looked around in disgust, acting mechanically.

I gave the order: ʻForward at a brisk pace!ʼ

We entered the burned village.

It had been pillaged, razed to the ground.

Suddenly, from a dry well, a kind of ghost emerged.

Having emerged, dirty and tattered,

he fell to the ground and released a lament in Armenian.

I pulled him to his feet and questioned him.

He was an Armenian from another village,

a good boy.

He was there for business,

just as the inhabitants were about to flee.

No sooner had they set out than the Bashi-Bazouks struck.

A large number… 40,000, he reckoned.

He had heard the screams and anyway knew how it ended.

He then heard the Bashi-Bazouks were returning by a different path.

ʻThey're going to our villageʼ, he said, ʻand will do the same to my people.ʼ

He wept continually, wringing his hands.

All of a sudden, it was as if I was enlightened.

My heart melted and it was as if the world smiled at me once more.

I asked the Armenian how long it had been since they left.

He reckoned it had been about three hours ago.

ʻHow long to your village on horseback?ʼ

ʻFive hours.ʼ

I gave the Armenian a horse and followed him

through the gorge, with the whole detachment.

I no longer know how we climbed those mountains.

We had just emerged from the final gorge,

and were about to join the main road,

When suddenly, I saw the Armenian galloping toward us,

signalling us.

They were there.

I went to the vanguard, focused my telescope:

it was indeed them, horsemen as far as the eye could see.

Not 40,000, but about three or four thousand, maybe even five.

The devil's imps saw us and turned to face us.

Just as we came at their left flank, they started shooting at our Cossacks.

Those Asiatics were firing European rifles

almost like they were human beings!

Here and there, Cossacks fell from their horses.

I therefore ordered my men to fire on these demons,

making a dispersed attack,

and once they had provoked them, to retreat to the cannons.

I placed one company to conceal the cannons,

and lined up the Nizhny men on the left of the battery.

After exchanging a few shots, the Cossacks withdrew, whooping.

The demons gave chase.

By now they were hurtling, no longer even shooting.

They galloped straight at us.

I said to myself that the hour of God's will had arrived.

The company split in two, revealing the cannons.

I ordered the battery to fire.

And God blessed all my six shots.

Never in my life had I heard such demonic howling!

Before they knew what hit them, the second salvo came.

When I looked to see, the horde was in rout.

The third salvo struck them from behind, wreaking mayhem.

They were stampeding, trampling each another.

Then, with the dragoons and Cossacks from the left flank,

we butchered them.

Few escaped. The sword finished the cannons' work.

Some threw down their weapons, dismounted,

begging for ʻamanʼ.

I did not intervene,

my men knew it was not the time for ʻamanʼ,

and the Cossacks and Dragoons cut them all down.

The task was finished.

In my soul I felt the Lord's Resurrection.

We gathered our dead.

37 men had entrusted their souls to God.

We laid them on level ground and closed their eyes.

We had a non-commissioned officer, Odarchenko,

a remarkable old man, with a good knowledge of holy writ.

I told him, ʻWe are campaigning, we are no good at hallelujahs,

stand in for the priest, chant the funeral rite for our dead.ʼ

And he chanted the rite as was befitting.

But we had no priest to forgive their sins.

When Odarchenko recited the names of the dead soldiers,

who had fallen on the field of honour for the faith,

for tsar and country,

I truly felt they were not empty words, or ordinary titles,

but that there really was a Christ-loving army

and that war was, is, and will be,

until the end of time,

a great, honourable and holy thing.”

After he buried his dead, filled with such enlightenment,

did he remember the foes he had slain in their hundreds?

Thank God they were able to get themselves thence

before the corpses could remind them.

You have ruined everything.

How can you say so?

What would you have liked him to do?

To give those jackals a Christian burial?

Who were neither Christians nor Muslims, but the devil knows what?

And even if he had been insane enough to order a funeral service for them

to be held alongside that for the Cossacks,

you would have accused him of not respecting their religion.

What! The poor things,

who glorified the devil and worshiped fire all their lives,

to subject them post mortem

to coarse, superstitious Christian rites!

He had other concerns.

He ordered the officers to forbid the men

from going within twenty paces of the corpses.

He had seen that the Cossacks were itching

to loot the dead, as was customary.

Who knows what pestilence they might have caught from those devils.

May they rot in hell!

Do I understand correctly?

You were afraid that the Cossacks, by looting the Bashi-Bazouk corpses,

might have spread contagion in your husband's camp?

It seems obvious to me.

Behold the “Christ-loving army”!

The Cossacks?

Nothing but brigands! They always have been.

Does it not seem to you that we are talking in the abstract?

Yes, it seems to me that something is amiss.

I do not understand what you want from me.

Olga is surprised that the sublime, almost saintly Cossacks

proved to be, as you say, “nothing but brigands”.

How can war be “a great, honourable and holy thing”

if, as you say, it is the struggle of brigands against other brigands?

So that is what it was: “The struggle of brigands against other brigands.”

But this is about a different kind of brigand…

If you do not believe that theft

is the same as roasting babies under their mothers' eyes…

This is what I still have to read to you:

My dear Ingrida,

My conscience is so pure, as I look back on it now,

that I still regret not having died after I ordered the last salvo.

And I am in no doubt that, had I died that moment,

I would have gone straight before God,

along with my 37 Cossacks,

and we would have received a place in heaven

next to the good thief of the Gospels.

Not for nothing is he in the Gospels.

But, my dear Ingrida,

the Gospels do not say

that only Christians can be likened to the good thief.

Why are you so antagonistic toward me?

Where did he draw any distinction between nations or religions?

Are the Armenians of the same nation or faith as us?

Are not the “devil's imps” humans too?

Did he say that in every man can be good and evil?

That in every thief, coward or Bashi-Bazouk

lies hidden a good thief?

Who can understand you?

She is right.

Either you say the evil man is an irresponsible brute,

or that a Bashi-Bazouk who roasts children over a low flame

might prove to be the good thief of the Gospels!

And all this only to avoid calling evil by its name.

What matters to me is not that in every man

can be found the seeds of good and evil.

What is important is

not that grape juice can make both wine and vinegar.

What is important is whether the bottle contains wine or vinegar.

For if it is vinegar

and I drink it and serve it to others,

under the pretext that even so, it is still made of grape juice,

I do nobody a service,

but rather I give us all a stomach ache.

All men are brothers.

Perfect.

Glad to hear it.

What then?

Brothers can differ.

Why shouldn't I wish to know which is Cain and which Abel?

What if my brother Cain skins my brother Abel,

and I, not being indifferent to my brothers,

box Cain's ears

to stop him doing it again.

“Should I stand aloof or should I hit him?”

Why this dilemma?

Because we cannot find a third way, Olga.

Olga,

earlier you suggested that we pray to God

that He intervenes to mend a devil's ways.

You seem to have abandoned this course.

I too believe that prayer is the path,

but it cannot replace deed.

The pious, for example,

pray before meals,

but in order to chew, they use their own jaws.

I refuse to believe that,

without praying,

Andrei Nikolaevich ordered his artillery to fire.

Such a prayer is obviously a blasphemy.

It is not to pray that counts, but rather to do God's will.

Meaning?

He who is deeply imbued with the spirit of the Gospels

will find within him, when needed,

the ability to use words, deeds and appearances

to sway his blind brother who wants to kill or commit some other evil.

This will produce in him such a strong impression

that it will make him turn back onto the right path.

Heavens above!

You mean that, faced with Bashi-Bazouks who roast babies over a low flame,

he ought to have made moving gestures

and uttered moving words?

Words, my dear Olga,

given the distance between them and the lack of a shared language,

would likely have been out of place.

As for moving gestures, whatever you might say,

nothing better than that could have been found.

In fact,

in what language and by what means

could the general have got along with the Bashi-Bazouks?

I didn't say he could have treated them in accordance with the Gospels.

I said only that a man filled with evangelical grace

would have found a solution even in that situation

to awaken in them the good that lies hidden in every man.

Do you really believe that?

I do not doubt it.

Then you believe that Christ was imbued with sufficient evangelical grace?

What kind of question is that?

I wish to know why Christ did not use His evangelical grace

to awaken the hidden good in the souls of Judas,

Herod, the Jewish high priests and the bad thief.

We forget this when we speak of the good.

But Olga, you must sacrifice one or the other.

Either Christ and the Gospels as the highest authority,

or your moral optimism.

Because the third path,

to regard the Gospels as fiction or priestly distortion,

a well-trodden path, is barred to you once and for all.

No matter how much you truncate the text of the Gospels to suit you,

what remains indisputable,

and what is essential to our discussion,

is the fact that Christ was persecuted

and killed because His enemies hated him.

That He remained above such evil,

that He did not resist and forgave them, we both understand.

But why, in forgiving His enemies, to put it as you would,

did He not save their souls from the darkness in which they lay?

Why did He not vanquish their evil through the power of His meekness?

Why did He not awaken the dormant good in them?

Why did He not give them the light and rebirth?

Why did He not act upon Judas, Herod and the high priests,

as in the case of the good thief?

Therefore, He either could not or would not.

In both cases, according to you, it results

that He was not sufficiently imbued with the true evangelical spirit.

And since we are talking about The Gospel of Christ,

it becomes clear that Christ

was not imbued with the true spirit of Christ.

My congratulations!

I am not going to engage you in a duel of words,

nor would I duel with Ingrida over the love of Christ.

Nikolai, it seems to me

that the time to have lunch gradually approaches.

Yes…

we are just about to be served.

Perfect.

And, of course, we cannot conclude

such a discussion so abruptly.

And later we shall have a game of cards.

But we really must continue this discussion.

Don't you agree, Edouard?

That we should continue the discussion?

And there I was glad that it was over!

The discussion had begun to take on an unpleasant air,

specific to the religious wars.

It is no longer in fashion, and I value my own skin.

Don't be facetious, Edouard!

You too must take part.

I agree, but on one condition: less of the religion.

I won't say we'll exclude it altogether, as that would be impossible.

But let there be less of it, for God's sake!

That “for God's sake” is adorable, given the context!

If you want less of the religion, you should do more of the talking.

Although I would rather listen, especially in weather like this,

I'm prepared to sacrifice myself for two hours

to save our little club from civil war,

which might have calamitous effects on our card game.

What a pure soul!

Perfect!

So…

later we will be able to finish

this discussion of the Gospels,

and Olga might be able to prepare some unbeatable argument.

In that case,

stay for dinner too, Edouard…

It wouldn't be a bad thing for you to accustom yourself to spiritual topics.

My self-sacrifice does not go that far.

And tomorrow I depart for Nice.

Nice?

Such naïve diplomacy!

But it's futile! I deciphered your code long ago.

We all know that when you say “I depart for Nice,”

it means “a party in Monte Carlo”.

A shame!

We shall manage.

Immerse yourself in matter

if you are not daunted by the thought of soon becoming spirit.

Go to Nice, to Monte Carlo!

And may Providence reward you according to your merits!

My merits have nothing to do with Providence,

but rather the application of indispensable measures.

As for winnings and other sums, I accept Providence,

at roulette, as in everything else.

But we should all meet again together.

- Olga! - Poor child!

Olga!

- István! - I'll fetch some water.

You know, such topics…

She is as cold as ice!

Open her mouth, please!

Give her room to breathe! You are crowding her.

Via Chernivtsi, it is two days to Königsberg.

So, Chernivtsi, Lemberg, Warsaw, Vilnius.

There is another route, but it takes longer, around three days.

Via Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Danzig.

Then you reach Königsberg.

Kolea…

Done.

Have you tried it?

Of course.

And you have too, haven't you?

The moving walkway is an invention

used for conveying the countless visitors…

- 50 million. - Yes.

Fewer, actually.

I have always felt well in such a company.

At Monte Carlo, for example.

At Monte Carlo or elsewhere.

Nowhere is there felt the need for a specimen of higher virtue.

But try living in a world with not even one polite man.

I'm not sure I understand. To which world do you refer?

Imagine the soldiers, at Solferino,

exchanging pleasantries as they shoot at each other.

You might as well have said that people crossing central Africa

require something other than politeness.

But I refer to everyday life, in a civilised human society.

Well, in that case,

there is no need for higher virtue

or for so-called Christianity.

Do you nod?

I'm thinking of a sad event of which I recently learned.

Our friend Miklos, who died last Monday.

But how is it that you recalled him now?

Did he die due to somebody's impoliteness?

On the contrary, he died due to his own politeness.

Tell us about it, if you are able.

There is nothing to hide.

Our friend,

who also regarded politeness as the first rung of social morality,

felt duty-bound to follow its rules as strictly as possible.

Meaning?

To read every letter, regardless of the sender,

as well as every book and pamphlet he was sent to review,

to answer every letter,

and to write every review,

to meet absolutely every demand made of him.

That is enormous!

As a result, every day he was busy with others' affairs,

setting aside for himself only the nights.

Further, he accepted every invitation,

and received every guest who found him at home.

As long as he was young and could handle strong liquor,

this convict's life, although oppressive,

was not transformed into tragedy, since wine saved him from despair.

When he felt like hanging himself, he laid hands on a bottle

and having taken a gulp, he bore his cross more bravely.

But he had a delicate constitution.

At the age of around forty, he gave up drinking.

Without strong drink, his penance seemed hellish,

and we heard he has committed suicide.

All because of politeness? He was clearly insane!

He had lost his equilibrium, but he was not insane.

I too know of cases of insanity

that are enough to make you lose your mind.

It is not so simple.

Forgive me, but politeness is not to blame for your friend's insanity.

He meant that politeness cannot be an absolute rule.

Absolute rules were invented by those devoid of any sense of reality.

I do not allow any absolute rule.

I only allow only indispensable rules.

I know for certain that if I do not obey the rules of hygiene,

both I myself and others will be disgusted at me.

Not wishing to cause or experience unpleasant sensations,

every day I obey the rule of washing myself,

changing my underlinen,

and not because it's the done thing

or because it's something sacred,

but because violation of this rule

is ipso facto unprofitable.

Such pragmatism!

It is the same with politeness, of which bodily hygiene is part.

It's more convenient to obey the rules than to break them.

Therefore I obey them.

If your friend deemed that politeness required him

to answer every letter and request,

heedless of his own convenience,

it was no longer politeness,

but stupid self-sacrifice.

Scrupulousness became a mania that destroyed him.

It is terrible to see a man die for so stupid a reason.

Couldn't you make him see sense?

I tried everything.

He had a strong ally, Umberto,

a monk, a kind of holy fool.

Miklos, my friend,

respected him and often asked his advice on spiritual matters.

Umberto immediately sniffed out the root of his sufferings.

I know this monk and was sometimes present during their talks.

As soon as Miklos laid out to him his moral doubts,

asking him whether he was right, or whether he had erred,

Umberto interrupted: “Enough!

There's no point glooming over your sins.

Listen to what I say:

Sin 539 times a day…”

539 times?

- 539 times. - How healthy.

A day!

“And above all, do not repent,

anyone can repent after sinning.

Sin away and never repent.

If sinning is evil,

remembering evil means being rancorous, which is not good.

The worst rancour is to remember your own sins.

Better you remember the evil done to you by others,

it will help you in future to avoid them.

As for the evil you yourself do, erase it completely from memory.

The only mortal sin is sorrow, because it gives rise to despair,

and despair goes beyond sin, it is the very death of the soul.

And then, what other sins are there?

Drunkenness?

An intelligent man drinks as much as he can hold,

if he can't hold it, he doesn't drink.

But a fool gets drunk even on spring water.

It means that not wine, but stupidity is to blame.

Out of stupidity, some inflame themselves with wine

not only on the outside, but on the inside too,

they are inflamed and burn, I have seen it myself,” said Umberto.

Of what evil do we speak

when before your very eyes, you spout the flames of hell?

“As for breaking the 6th commandment,

with hand on heart, I say:

to judge is not easy, but to praise is impossible.

I don't recommend it!

Certainly, it is a great pleasure,

no doubt about it,

but thereafter comes despair, which shortens life.”

He used to say:

“In youth, when one is still raw,

desire is great, but after that, you control yourself.

Then you start raking up the past, tormenting yourself with questions:

How did I lose my innocence, purity and bodily cleanliness?

It is utter stupidity, it means becoming the devil's buffoon.

And devil is flattered to see that your soul, rather than rising,

still flounders in the mud.

My advice is this:

As soon as the devil appears, tempting you with repentance,

spit in the wind and tell him:

These are my grave sins,

and this is how much I think they're worth!

He will leave you alone, I speak from experience”,

said Umberto.

“What other sins are there?

You're not going to steal, are you?

And even if you did, it's not serious. Nowadays everyone steals.

Stop worrying about trifles and seek to avoid sorrow.

When you remember your sins,

when you ask yourself whether you have upset anyone,

go to the theatre instead.

Go out with friends.

Read farces.

And if you really want a rule, this is it:

Be strong in faith,

not for the fear of sin, but for the joy of living with God.”

Do you hear that?

“Without God it is terrible.

Study the word of God.

If you read carefully, every verse is a pearl.

Pray from your heart, at least once or twice a day.

And of course, don't forget to wash…”

That's for you.

“A sincere prayer is the best soap for the soul.

Fast for a healthy stomach and innards,

don't think about other people's affairs,

don't engage in good works if you have other business,

be generous to the paupers who cross your path,

donate to churches and monasteries without keeping score,

since the balance will be settled in Heaven.

In this way, you will be healthy in body and soul.

Ignore the bigots who look

to sway your soul, since theirs are empty.”

These words had an effect on our friend,

but could not halt the tide of impressions

that overwhelmed him.

But your monk, in his own fashion, says more or less the same as I do.

What an astounding moralist!

Sin and do not repent: That I like.

I assume he does not say the same thing to everyone.

I think he takes a different tone with fools or villains.

Quite right.

When he observes excess scruple, he becomes philosophical,

even fatalistic.

Umberto also stirred the interest of a very intelligent old lady.

She was of the Russian faith, but educated abroad.

On hearing of him, she wanted him to be her spiritual adviser.

But he would not let her voice her spiritual concerns.

“Why fret over such foolery?” he said.

“To what avail?

“If it bores me, a mere peasant, how could it be of any interest to God?

“Enough! You're a wizened old crone and you'll never be more than that.”

She herself told me the story, with tears of laughter.

She tried to contradict him,

but he won the argument with a tale from the Lives of the Holy Fathers.

What tale?

A story Umberto used to tell us, Miklos and me.

A beautiful story,

but it would take too long to tell it now.

Do you hear?

Yes.

Yes, it's Christmas Eve.

Is it to… to herald Christmas.

It is the tradition here.

- Do you want to listen to them? - Certainly.

We would like to go outside, please.

It is a male choir, isn't it?

Yes, the villagers carol at every house.

Quick, quick!

Let's have some tea.

A little brandy, perhaps?

Tell Madame to come quickly, the Count is unwell.

Tell her!

Kolea!

Fetch Dr. Blumenfeld, the count is bleeding.

Quickly!

… 29th, Saint Thomas à Becket,

30th, Sunday of the Holy Family,

31st, Saint…

Saint Silvester I, Pope,

1st, St. Mary, Mother of God…

Sárika, come here!

Smell this!

Is that normal?

Smell it again!

I've told you before!

Go and fetch him!

Water, please. Five glasses.

Taste it.

Drink it all!

Go on.

Go on.

It happened last week,

it happened this week,

if it happens again…

Jancsi. What about the samovar?

They will have tea now.

We serve dinner at eight.

Go to the kitchen and correct everything, everything.

Because if it happens again,

I will be very, very upset.

Do you understand?

Go.

For a cough, butter a quince, boil it thoroughly,

then eat the quince and drink the liquid.

For bad breath, boil white willow leaf

and wash your mouth ten times…

Careful!

You wash your mouth ten times.

For a cramp, rub the spot, three Tuesdays in a row,

with the dust from the peel of a quince.

Truly sensational!

- Pardon? - They killed that girl.

Who?

From the Cabaret.

Turcsánsky…

Elsa.

Now we lift you up.

Gently, gently!

Easy does it.

Easy.

She was called Elsa the Witch.

Who?

The husband, Schmitt… Miksa.

The tycoon, with the furniture factory.

I read about it.

We've finished.

Easy…

- What about the tea? - Straight away.

Chamomile, marigold, lavender, mint.

We lift him up slowly.

Gently, gently.

Alright.

Now a little higher.

Are you comfortable?

- Olga? - I'm here!

- Do you still need me? - No.

Yesterday, European nations were united in the struggle for defence,

today are they united in spreading civilisation?

Excuse me…

The bad politics of the Bourbons…

- Did you call me? - What do you want?

- Did you call me? - No, damn it! Leave me alone.

This is precisely what we call an ugly story.

Let me invite you to take tea in the library.

It's not a question of words, political mistakes must be paid for.

Let them see it as something mystical, if they like.

Admit that your political remedy is ultimately tedious.

Had I not been interrupted, I would have finished with the topic

and given the floor to a more entertaining speaker.

Don't be angry, I was joking.

Quite the contrary, I find you highly witty

for your age and condition.

All I was saying is that now we are united with Europe

in our task of civilising Turkey.

That is why we must have a common strategy.

Well then, dear Nikolai, do you have Turkish tea for us?

Turkish tea? No.

That was cutting, Madeleine.

I would not have dared with Turkish tea.

It's ordinary Russian tea.

The best.

Exactly, the best tea.

I'm thinking of a Chinese dictum,

related to me by our friend, the Ambassador.

It goes like this:

Although we are still powerless in Turkey,

we can play a key role

in Central Asia and the Far East in particular,

where, it seems, universal history is about to shift its centre of gravity.

Thanks to its position,

Russia can do more there than any other nation,

apart from England, of course.

Therefore our policy in this respect

must aim for a permanent agreement with the English,

lest our civilising partnership

deteriorate into absurd animosity or undignified rivalry.

Never in people's lives or in that of nations

have I heard of a case where hostility or envy between partners

has made either stronger, richer, happier.

Intelligent people know this and I think

an intelligent nation such as Russia will act on it.

To be at odds with the English in the Far East would be insane.

Not to mention the disadvantage of quarrelling in front of strangers.

Or do you think we're more akin to the yellow-faced Chinese

than to the fellow countrymen of Shakespeare and Byron?

It is a delicate matter.

Just remember,

if we accept my viewpoint and recognise that at present

Russia's policy must set itself two tasks alone:

To preserve the peace in Europe,

since any war in Europe would, at this point,

be an absurd and criminal civil war,

and two,

to civilise the barbarian peoples within our sphere of influence.

We shall see that these two tasks

are of intrinsic value, and mutually support each other,

astonishingly so,

as each is conditional upon the other.

If the Chinese knew that Europe was behind us,

do you think we would be powerless in Asia?

But if they see Europe not behind Russia, but against it,

they might even think to attack our borders,

forcing us to defend our borders on two fronts 10,000 km apart.

I don't believe in the bogeyman of a Mongol invasion,

because I do not allow the possibility of war in Europe,

but should there be a war, we would also have to fear the Mongols.

According to you, war in Europe and a Mongol invasion are unlikely,

but I don't believe at all in this “solidarity of the European nations”

or in a future universal peace.

It is unnatural,

a chimaera.

Not for nothing do we sing in church:

“Peace on earth and goodwill to man.”

In other words, there will be peace

only when there is goodwill to man.

But where is this goodwill?

Have you seen it?

There is only one European power to which we both feel

a genuine and sincere goodwill: the Principality of Monaco.

And our peace with it is very stable.

But let us consider the Germans and those Englishmen of ours,

since their interests are ours too,

since their contentment is ours too, is it not?

This solidarity with the Europeans will never be possible over here.

How can it not be possible,

when it already exists? When it is in the nature of things?

We are in solidarity with the Europeans because we too are Europeans.

Ever since the 18th century, it has been an accomplished fact.

Neither the savagery of the Russian masses

nor the chimaeras of the Slavophiles will alter anything.

Are then the Europeans in solidarity among themselves?

The French and the Germans, for example,

or the English with the one and the other?

Apparently, even the Swedes have shed their solidarity with the Norwegians.

I shall say only this:

before declaring ourselves Europeans, let us at least wait

until the European nations are united.

We can hardly tear ourselves to pieces out of solidarity with Europeans,

when they are at daggers drawn among themselves.

Now they're at daggers drawn! Don't worry.

Neither between Sweden and Norway, nor even between France and Germany,

will there be a rupture.

So much is obvious.

Only in our country

do so many people believe that France

is a bunch of adventurers fit for prison.

That is where they belong.

Let them voice their nationalism there and preach war with Germany.

It would be good

if nationalist animosity could be put in prison.

But I think you're wrong.

Naturally,

I said it with a grain of salt.

Obviously, Europe is not yet a unified whole.

Even if regional separatism existed even in the 16th century,

it was giving up the ghost,

and state unity, now a reality, had begun to take shape.

The same as in Europe now:

although there are still regional antagonisms,

particularly among the masses and ill-educated politicians,

they cannot lead to any significant action.

They cannot cause a war in Europe!

Does it matter that the French and Germans

bear each other no goodwill, as long as they don't fight?

And that will not happen.

If we concede Europe to be a whole, it does not follow that we are European.

For the last 20 years, there has been a widespread opinion that Europe,

that is, the aggregate of the Romano-German peoples,

constitutes a unified cultural and historical type.

But we Russians belong not to this type,

but to another, the Greco-Slavic.

We are familiar with those gentlemen who rail against Europe

and our Greco-Slavonic origins,

casting themselves headlong

into preaching Confucianism, Buddhism, Tibetanism,

and other Indo-Mongolian barbarities.

Their distance from Europe

is directly proportional to their attraction to Asia.

Russia was, is and will always act

as Europe's buffer against Asia.

That is why

more than other European countries, our homeland

is influenced by the Asian element,

hence our imaginative originality.

Not even Byzantium was original in and of itself,

but rather through Asian influence.

In our case, from the very beginning,

particularly since Batu Khan,

the Asian element has permeated our being,

become our second nature,

prompting the Germans to say of us:

“They have two souls in one breast,

“and one wants to break free of the other.”

- I hope I didn't mangle it. - No, very nice.

It would be impossible for us to break free of our second nature,

for real,

and it would be pointless, since we are indebted to it.

But lest this clash tear us apart,

as you said, Ingrida,

it is necessary that one alone triumph and dominate.

The best, of course!

That is, the most intellectually robust, the one most capable of progress,

the one richest in potential.

It happened under Peter the Great, but the deep affinity with Asia,

although suppressed once and for all, continues

to urge others

foolishly to dream of the chimerical solution

to a historical problem already solved.

Hence Slavophilia,

the theory of the cultural-historical original type, and so on.

In reality, we are irrevocably European,

with an Asian sediment in the depths of our soul.

As far as I am concerned,

it is a grammatical evidence, so to speak.

What is “Russian”, grammatically speaking?

An adjective.

With which noun does it agree?

With the noun “man”: “a Russian man”, “the Russian people”.

No, it's too broad, too vague.

Papuans and Eskimos are also men, but I refuse to share my noun

with Papuans and Eskimos.

Nonetheless there are important things humans have in common.

Love, for example.

That's even broader:

how could I deem love as essentially individualising,

knowing that it belongs to animals and all creatures?

I, for example, am a meek man.

In love, I am closer to a white dove than to black Othello,

even if Othello is a man.

From a certain age, every reasonable man is in solidarity with white doves.

What was that?

It was a play on words,

not for you, but for His Excellency…

Joking aside! This is not the Comic Opera, as far as I know.

I meant that the true noun for the adjective “Russian”

is the word “European”.

We are Russian Europeans,

the same as the English, the French and the Germans.

If I feel myself to be European,

is it not stupid to demonstrate that I am Russo-Slavic

or Greco-Slavic?

I know for a fact that I am a European,

just as I know I am a Russian, a Franco-Russian, even.

I can and perhaps even must

be charitable to every man and animal.

But if I am to feel solidarity,

to feel at home,

it will not be with the Zulus or Chinese,

but only

with the nations

that have created and preserved this treasury of high civilisation

on which I nourish my soul and which provides me with supreme delights.

Are you sure?

First of all, these chosen nations had to take shape,

to gain strength and to survive against inferior elements.

War was necessary, war was sacred.

Now they have taken shape,

they have acquired power

and they have nothing more to fear, except internal strife.

Everywhere today, an age of peace is heralded,

an age of peaceful expansion of European civilisation.

All must become Europeans.

The notion of European must coincide with that of man,

and the notion of European civilisation, with that of mankind.

- This is the meaning of history. - This is becoming serious…

First they were only Greek Europeans,

then Roman Europeans,

then all the rest appeared,

first in the West, then in the East,

Russian Europeans appeared,

across the ocean, American Europeans,

now is the turn of the Turkish Europeans,

the Persian, Indian, Japanese, and even Chinese Europeans.

“European” is a notion

with a well-defined content and which is constantly growing.

Regarding this, notice the difference: every man is just as human as any other.

Therefore, if we take

so abstract a notion as a noun,

we will arrive at egalitarian non-differentiation

and we will not grant

the nation of Shakespeare and Newton any greater weight than the Papuans.

Excuse me, but it is taking longer than expected.

Don't worry.

I'll be back in half an hour.

- Will you be needing me, Olga? - No, thank you.

As I was saying,

first and foremost it is absurd, and deleterious in practice.

If my noun is not “man”,

that biped devoid of content,

but cultural man,

that is, the European,

then absurd egalitarianism no longer has any place.

The notion of “European” or, in other words, “culture”,

contains a sure criterion

for determining,

by comparison, the quality or value

of the different races, nations, individuals.

These differences in value

must be taken into account by a healthy policy.

Otherwise, if we place on the same level

relatively civilised Austria

and some semi-savage Hertzegovans,

it will lead us straight

to the absurd, dangerous adventures

yearned for by the last Mohicans of Slavophilia.

There are Europeans and Europeans.

Is that so?

When the long-awaited time comes,

hopefully very soon, when Europe, that is,

the civilised world

will genuinely coincide, in its dimensions,

with the whole population of the globe,

there will remain in the bosom of a mankind united and at peace

those natural gradations

and nuances of cultural value that history has laid down,

according to which our relations with various peoples must be adjusted.

And in the triumphant, universal kingdom of the higher civilisation,

it will be as in the Kingdom of Heaven:

“One is the light of the sun,

“one is the light of the moon, one is the light of the stars,

“for star differs from star in its brilliance.”

That is what the Catechism says.

When the target is so close but has not been reached,

we must guard

against the errors of undifferentiated egalitarianism.

Recently, the papers have reported a conflict

between England and Transvaal.

It seems the Africans threaten England with war.

Already I see all kinds of journalists and politicians,

from here and maybe even all across the continent,

waging a campaign against England

and taking the side of those oppressed Africans.

How shameful!

If only those wretched cowherds

had had the flair to accept their Dutch origins.

Holland is a real nation, honourable, patently superior.

But no! They consider themselves a nation apart

and they want to build an African homeland of their own.

The scoundrels!

First of all, do not use derogatory words,

then explain what the Transvaal is and what kind of people live there?

A mixture of Europeans and blacks:

Neither white nor black, but brown.

Another calembour, apparently.

- Not one of the best. - A calembour for a Boer.

If you do not like that colour, there is also the Orange Republic.

Wonderful…

But seriously, the Boers

are still Europeans, but of the bad variety.

Isolated from their glorious homeland,

they have, to a large extent, lost their civilisation.

Surrounded by savages, they have grown savage and harsh.

To place them on the same level as the English

or worse, to wish for their victory in the war with England,

is inconceivable!

But the same Europeans sympathise with the mountain tribes of the Caucasus,

who oppose you, fighting for their freedom.

And Russia is far more civilised than the Circassians.

On that we agree.

Setting aside

the reasons for Europe's sympathy for the Caucasus savages,

I shall say only that we must assimilate

the global European spirit,

not the follies of this or that European.

Certainly, I would deeply regret it if England were forced

to employ the obsolete

and historically blameworthy means that is war

to appease those arrogant barbarians.

But if war proves inevitable,

because of Zulu savagery,

encouraged by continental envy of England,

then naturally, I will hope the war concludes

with the African brigands crushed,

so that we shall never again hear of their independence.

Were they to prevail, possible given the context,

it would be the triumph of barbarity over civilisation,

and for me as a Franco-Russian, i.e. a European,

it would be a day of national mourning.

No, I disagree.

Why shouldn't we sympathise with the Boers

the same as we do with Wilhelm Tell?

Well, if they had created their own legend,

if they had inspired artists like Schiller or Rossini,

if they had produced a Jean-Jacques Rousseau,

we would speak differently.

But they all came afterward.

Even the Swiss were originally nothing but shepherds.

And not only they.

When they rebelled against the English

to gain independence,

were the Americans notable for their education? No.

Even if they were not brown,

they had red skin and scalped their enemies.

Read Mayne Reid.

But even so, La Fayette sympathised with them.

And he was right.

Because now all the religions have been assembled in Chicago,

they have held an exhibition, an amazing thing.

They intended to do the same in Paris for the exhibition,

but nothing came of it.

An abbot did his utmost,

Father Victor Charbonnel.

He wrote me some letters. A very nice man.

But all the religions declined.

The Grand Rabbi said: “For religion,

“we have the Bible, an exhibition is superfluous.”

Poor Charbonnel, out of sorrow, has abandoned Christ.

The newspapers say he has retired, and was quite an admirer of Renan.

He ended up badly,

they say either he married

or succumbed to drink.

Your Neplyuev ended up the same,

but he was disillusioned with all religions.

That idealist wrote to me

saying he has faith only in humanity.

But how to exhibit humanity at the Paris Exhibition?

It seems to me utter folly!

But the Americans did do a very good job.

Representatives of every religion answered their call.

They appointed a Catholic bishop as chairman,

who read the Lord's Prayer in English,

and the Chinese and Buddhist idolater priests

politely answered: “Oh, yes! All right, sir!

We wish nobody any ill,

we ask only that your missionaries leave us alone.

Because

your religion is very good for you,

and it is not our fault if you do not follow it,

but our religion is the best for us.”

And it all ended well,

there was no fighting, to everyone's surprise.

That's Americans today.

Who knows?

Today's Africans might one day become Americans like that.

Anything is possible, of course.

Even a rascal can become a scientist. Until then,

a sound thrashing will do him good.

What an expression!

You have succumbed to vice. Is it because of Monte Carlo?

Whose company do you keep there? The families of croupiers?

Anyway, it's your business.

I merely ask you to shorten your exposition on political wisdom.

It is time that we conclude.

I was about to sum up and link to what I said at the start.

I don't believe you, you won't conclude by yourself.

I really must help you clarify your position.

You said, didn't you,

that in the olden days,

there existed God and war,

but now, instead of God, we have culture and peace?

That was it, wasn't it?

In a way, yes.

Perfect.

I neither know nor can explain what God is,

but I can sense Him.

As for your Culture, it stirs nothing in me.

Therefore, in brief, explain to me what it is.

What Culture is, what it consists of, you already know.

It is the whole treasury of thought and genius,

created by the elect minds of elect peoples.

Yes,

but that can mean anything, and there is considerable diversity.

Let us take Voltaire, Bossuet, the Madonna, Nana,

Alfred de Musset, Filaret.

How can you lump them all together and then replace God with them?

I also meant that we shouldn't bother about culture as a historical treasure.

Culture was created, it exists.

We can still hope there will be other Shakespeares and Newtons,

but that does not depend on us and is of no practical interest.

Culture also has

a practical or, if you like, moral side,

that is precisely what in private life is known as politeness, courtesy.

To a superficial eye it may seem unimportant,

but it has a vast and unique meaning

because only this can take on a universal, obligatory character.

We cannot demand of anyone lofty virtue, or superior intelligence or genius,

but we can demand of all that they show politeness.

It is the minimum of common feeling and morality,

which allows people to live like human beings.

We clearly cannot reduce culture to politeness,

but it is the indispensable condition for every culture.

Just as writing and reading are indispensable

to the mind's education.

Even if the latter entails more than that.

What is it?

Edouard, if you could see your face…

What's happening?

What is it?

I don't know.

Please, Edouard, continue!

Excuse me, I lost the thread of what you were saying.

- No, he'd just finished. - I was saying…

We should not be concerned with culture in general,

as a historical treasure, it was created, it exists.

We can still hope there will be new Shakespeares and Newtons,

but that does not depend on us and is of no practical interest.

Culture also has another aspect,

a practical or, if you like, moral aspect,

that is precisely what in private life

is called politeness, courtesy.

Really?

Strange…

Excuse me.

Now we really are at the Comic Opera.

- Nobody comes. - Yes, strange that nobody comes.

Is this a joke?

How strange that nobody comes.

It is strange, isn't it?

Perhaps it is the carollers from earlier.

But where is Olga?

Is she in the house? Strange that nobody comes.

István!

Maybe we ought to go and see.

Edouard is uneasy.

Ring again!

It's not usual in this house.

Do you see where you have brought our dear Nikolai's house?

Everything is out of joint.

What's with this silence?

Don't worry.

Zoyichka!… Zoya!…

- I'll go and see. - You'd…

István!

What's going on?

Answer me, what's going on?

Ingrida!

Easy…

- Gently. - Mind the door.

Ready.

Here we are.

- Now. - Yes.

Here you are…

- Are you comfortable? - István…

Yes?

What do you think of this: “Arise, life's accursed,

“Arise, those condemned to hunger!”

I think it refers to the foundry workers.

Those who want to work less but earn more…

Their wages…

What about this line?

“The International will be the human race.”

István, I need your help.

Sure.

In another week you will have recovered.

Tell me when you finish.

Yes, sir.

So you think it is the Antichrist?

Of course not.

There are hints as to his nature,

but he has not yet arrived.

Then explain him to us as simply as possible.

I cannot guarantee it will be simple.

It is not easy to achieve genuine simplicity,

and illusory, artificial, false simplicity is the most sinful.

According to an ancient maxim, which a late friend used to repeat:

“Simplicity can easily be deceptive.”

Not even that is so simple.

The same as in the folk saying, probably.

Which is?

“Simplicity is the worst theft.”

Simplicity is worse than theft.

Exactly.

Now I understand.

A pity the Antichrist cannot be explained through proverbs.

Then enlighten us.

Very well.

But before I do,

tell me whether you recognise the existence

and power of Evil in the world?

We wouldn't wish to recognise them,

but we are forced to do so.

Death is no small matter,

an evil none escapes.

I think the final enemy to be defeated will be death.

And as long as it is undefeated,

it is clear that Evil is stronger than Good.

What do you think, Ingrida?

Of course Evil exists, the same as Good exists.

If God exists, then the devil also exists.

As long as God permits, of course.

For the time being, I refrain from comment.

But I am curious as to other opinions.

I understand Olga's way of thinking,

that is, it's obvious to me it isn't really a way of thinking,

but quite simply a pretence,

which makes no sense.

But the obviously more consistent religious viewpoint

is what interests me more,

although I've encountered it only in its bureaucratic form

and it doesn't satisfy me.

I would very much like to hear about this,

not some pious homilies, but a human opinion.

Of the stars that

rise in the mind of him who reads the scriptures,

none, I think, is brighter or more astonishing

than that which shines in the Gospels.

Behold the poet.

No, wait!

“Think not that I have come to send peace on earth.

“I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

He came to bring us the Truth,

and the Truth, like the Good, is a sword, it divides.

Nor is this very clear.

Why then is Christ named “Prince of Peace”

and why did He say

the peacemakers will be named “sons of the Lord”?

Note that we can only reconcile contradictory texts

by separating the good peace, the true peace,

from the false peace,

the bad peace.

This distinction was clearly shown

by Him who brought true peace and good enmity.

“My peace I give unto you.

“Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

Therefore, there is a good peace, Christ's peace,

based on the division Christ brings to the world,

that is, the distinction between Good and Evil,

lie and truth.

And there is an evil, worldly peace,

which rests upon the confusion or seeming reconciliation

of what essentially cannot be reconciled.

How do you explain to us the difference between the good and the bad peace?

Like Ingrida this morning,

when she joked about there being “good peace”,

like that of Nystadt or Kuchuk-Kainardji.

This joke conceals a more important and more general meaning.

In the spiritual struggle, the same as in the political one,

a good peace

is that attained only when the purpose of the war is achieved.

But ultimately, why are Good and Evil at war?

Is it really necessary that they confront each other?

Can there be hand-to-hand fighting between them?

In a war,

when one side gains ground, the other side, the enemy,

seeks reinforcements,

and the conflict must be solved at the front, with cannon and bayonet.

But in the battle of Good against Evil, there is no such thing.

When Good gains strength, Evil is weakened at once,

and they never actually confront each other.

Such things are figurative.

I think that…

we must merely take care

that the Good predominate in people,

for then Evil will be diminished of itself.

Do you think the good must simply become better

in order for the wicked to shed their wickedness

and themselves to become good?

Yes, I do.

Has a good man's goodness ever made an evil man good?

Or at least less evil?

No.

Never have I heard the like…

What you say is similar to what you told Olga this morning.

In other words,

not even Christ,

in all His goodness, could derive any good

from the soul of Judas Iscariot

or the soul of the bad thief.

Olga should answer your question, remember to ask her when she comes.

Since I don't believe she is Antichrist, I don't believe she'll come.

I believe even less in her theological astuteness.

In order for the question not to hamper our discussion,

I shall present the objection that Olga might express.

“Why did Christ not use His goodness

“to restore the souls of Judas and co.?”

Simply because the age was too ignorant

and only few souls had attained the moral level

at which can be perceived

the intrinsic power of truth.

Judas and co. had not sufficiently evolved.

As Christ told His Disciples:

“The works that I do,

“greater works than these shall you do.”

At the advanced stage of moral development

we have now attained,

the true disciples of Christ can,

by the power of their meekness and non-violence,

work miracles superior to those of 18 centuries ago.

If I may!

If they can, then why don't they?

Or perhaps you have seen such new miracles?

So it is that Olga,

not even after 18 centuries of moral development

of the Christian awareness,

still cannot enlighten my darkened soul.

And I remain the same cannibal

as before I met her.

The same as up until now, more than anything in the world,

after God and Russia, I favour the military art,

and the artillery in particular.

After all, I have met apostles of non-violence before,

and of a different calibre than our dear Olga.

Please,

why take such a personal stance?

What do you expect of me?

I've presented to you on Olga's behalf a Gospel text she had forgotten.

“That's good, or not so good

“I can't answer for other people's dreams.”

Well, now I shall take the defence of our dear Olga.

She would have shown intelligence if she had answered Ingrida thus:

“I myself and people like me, whom you have met,

“regard ourselves as true disciples of Christ

“only with regard to…”

Dinner is served.

Yes, very well.

- Sorry, what were you saying? - Nothing.

I was saying that,

were I to speak on Olga's behalf,

this is how I would have answered Ingrida:

“I myself and people like me, whom you have met,

regard ourselves as true disciples of Christ,

only with regard to our thoughts and deeds,

not because we think we have acquired a higher power.

Certainly, somewhere there exist or will exist,

one fine day,

better Christians than us,

and they would be able to enlighten even you.”

This answer, certainly, would be convenient,

since it appeals to an unknown authority.

But no matter.

They would say, for example:

“We cannot do anything.

Neither more nor the same as Christ did,

neither less nor even close.”

What then may we logically deduce therefrom?

We may deduce only one thing.

That Christ's words: “Greater works than these shall you do”,

were not addressed to those men but to others,

who resemble them not at all.

However,

we may imagine

that a man will fulfil the teachings of Christ

as to loving one's enemy and turning the other cheek.

And also through Christ,

he will be able to turn, by his meekness,

evil souls into good souls.

Not long ago, such an experiment was performed.

Not only did it fail,

but it proved exactly the opposite of your claims.

There lived a man of boundless meekness,

who not only forgave every insult,

but answered every evil deed with greater and greater good.

What then?

Did he shake his enemy's soul to its foundations?

Did he cause him to be morally reborn?

Alas, he only has harshened the villain's heart,

and he died a wretched death by his hand.

But please, let us take our seats at the dinner table.

Who were you talking about?

Who was this man?

Where and when did he live?

Not long ago, in St. Petersburg.

I thought you knew him.

He's Delarue, the Chamberlain.

Never heard of him in my life…

You argued that the meaning of History

resides in the fact that natural humanity,

initially composed of peoples of greater or lesser savagery,

which differed from each other, and either ignored or fought each other,

gradually gives birth to a better, more educated condition,

the civilised world.

Or European world.

Which grows and expands

to encompass every remaining people left behind by this movement of history,

bringing them together in a unitary whole, pacifist, international, in solidarity.

“The establishment of everlasting international peace.”

That was how you put it, wasn't it?

The imminent realisation these words

will lead to far more civilisational successes than might now appear.

Think of how much Evil will, necessarily, have atrophied

and how much Good,

by the nature of things, will appear and develop.

How much energy will be released for productive activities,

how the sciences and arts will flourish, industry and commerce…

Do you include the elimination of disease and death

among the imminent successes of civilisation?

It goes without saying.

Up to a point.

Much has been achieved in the medical sphere,

hygiene, antisepsis, organotherapy…

But are not these evident positive achievements

counterbalanced by an equally evident progress

of the degenerative psychopathic and neuropathological phenomena

that go hand in hand with the development of civilisation?

But what scales could weigh such a thing?

In any event, it is clear that the negative increases with the positive.

The sum tends toward zero. So much for diseases.

Then, as for death,

progress has never been anything other than zero.

Does the progress of civilisation aim to eliminate death?

I know very well it does not.

This is why it's not good to have such expectations.

In fact,

if I were certain that I would die once and for all,

along with all that I love, would I not be indifferent

whether various nations warred or lived in peace,

if they were civilised or savage, polite or not?

From a personal, selfish viewpoint, certainly it's all the same.

Selfish in what way?

Death levels all.

In the face of death, selfishness and altruism are just as absurd.

True. Nevertheless,

the absurdity of selfishness does not stop us being selfish.

Likewise altruism, insofar as it is possible,

does not require reason,

and the thought of death changes nothing.

My children and my grandchildren will die, I'm aware of it,

but that does not stop me caring for them

as if they will live forever.

I work for them, first of all, because I love them.

I'm glad to devote my life to them. I like doing so.

It's as simple as that.

Yes, as long as all is well.

But the thought of death is still there.

But when bad things happen to your children and grandchildren,

what joy,

what pleasure will you find then?

It's the same as with waterlilies:

when you pick them, you sink in the mire.

But it is still your duty to care for your children and grandchildren.

Of course.

Without having answered or even asked the question

of whether your care for them provides with them a real, definite good.

You care for them, not without reason, but because you bear them a living love.

We can't bear the same love for people who do not yet exist.

And this is where the question that reason asks us comes in,

with regard to the final purpose of our care.

If the answer, ultimately, is the death of each and everyone,

if the final result of progress

and of your civilisation

is in every case the death of all,

then it is clear

that all civilised activity is in vain.

It is pointless and absurd.

The true Christian doctrine does not even allow such an approach.

The evangelical solution

is clearly and thoroughly expressed in the parable of the vineyard.

The servants imagined the vineyard they were to tend for their master

was their own property

and that everything there was theirs.

They set about enjoying life in the vineyard, forgot their master,

and slew those who reminded them of him and their duties.

Almost everyone today lives like them.

In the absurd belief

that they are masters of their lives given to them for their own pleasure.

It is obviously absurd.

If we have been sent here,

it was by someone's will and for a reason.

But we have decided we are like mushrooms:

we are born and we live only for our pleasures.

It is clearly not good for us,

nor will it be for the disobedient servant.

The master's will is expressed in the doctrine of Christ.

Let people obey His doctrine, and heaven will reign on earth.

People will then receive the greatest good they are permitted.

It's all here.

Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,

and the rest will be given to you in abundance.

We do not seek the rest and we do not find it.

Not only do we not establish the Kingdom of God, but we destroy it

with our states, our armies,

courts, universities and factories.

- Have you finished? - Yes.

I have to…

to tell you that I simply cannot understand your way

of solving the problem.

You seem to reason,

argue and explicate,

you wish to convince us of something,

and yet you put forward nothing

but a series of arbitrary, meaningless statements.

You say, for example:

if we have been sent here,

it was by someone's will and for a reason.

This seems to be the principal idea.

But what does it mean?

How do you know we were sent here by someone, for something?

Who told you so?

It is true we exist on earth,

that our life consists in fulfilling some mission or other

is a wholly gratuitous statement.

In my youth, when I was sent on mission,

I knew it for certain.

I knew by whom and for what purpose.

First of all because I had indisputable documents,

secondly,

because I had had an audience with the late Alexander II,

who personally gave me instructions,

and thirdly,

because every year I was paid 30,000 gold rubles.

A handsome sum!

If, rather than all that,

somebody had approached me on the street,

made me a minister

and sent me off on a mission,

then I would have looked around for a policeman

to arrest that lunatic lest he take my life.

In our case,

your supposed master did not give you indisputable documents,

he did not grant you a private audience,

he does not pay you a salary.

What kind of emissary are you?

And I refer not just to you, but to all people,

whether envoys or servants, we do not know for sure.

By what right? On what basis? I do not understand.

My impression is that it is a rhetorical exercise,

and not a very inspired one.

Please,

don't play-act again.

You understand perfectly

that Olga was not attacking your unbelief,

but expositing the general Christian view

according to which we all depend on God

and must serve Him.

To serve him without a wage, this I do not understand.

And if this wage is the same for all, meaning death,

then my compliments.

You will die anyway

and nobody will ask your opinion.

Precisely this “anyway” shows us that life is not a paid job.

Whether or not I am asked for my consent,

since my consent is not required in order to die or be born,

I prefer to regard both death and life,

as what they are, that is, necessities of nature.

Rather than tell myself I serve a master.

Here is my conclusion:

Live your life

and strive to live

as intelligently and as well as possible.

The condition for an intelligent and good life

is a pacifist civilisation.

Besides, I assume that not even in the realm of Christian teaching

does Olga's pseudo-solution stand up to criticism.

But I surrender the floor to more competent speakers.

What answer are we talking about?

The question has neither been asked nor answered.

Instead, we keep going around and around it.

It is as if I were to draw battalions

around an enemy fortress on a map

and imagine I had conquered it.

I don't understand a thing!

Is that all you can muster against what I said?

What was genuinely hard for me to understand

was the part about mushrooms living for their own pleasures.

I've always thought they were for the pleasure of gourmets,

served with cream or in pastry.

And if God's kingdom on earth leaves death intact,

then it follows that people live against their will

and in that kingdom,

we will live like mushrooms.

But not like your pleasure-taking mushrooms,

rather as real mushrooms, which will end up in the pan.

The same for humans

in God's kingdom on earth,

they will finally be devoured by death.

And that will be that.

Olga didn't say that.

Neither that, nor anything else.

Why do we overlook the most important thing?

Before that,

I'd like to know where you got that parable,

Olga, whereby you expressed your opinion?

Or maybe you invented it yourself?

Invented it myself?

But it's from the Gospels!

That parable is not in any Gospel.

For God's sake!

Why are you picking on Olga?

There is a parable of the vine workers in the Gospels.

There is something on a similar subject,

but its meaning and content refer to something else.

This is too much! To me, it is the same parable.

And besides, it seems to me that you are splitting hairs.

And I don't take your word for it.

Nor is there any need to.

The parable can be found in three of the Evangelists:

Matthew, Mark, and Luke,

but there is no noticeable difference among them,

therefore let us look at only one of them, the most detailed,

in Luke.

It is in chapter 20,

where we find Christ's final sermon.

The end was approaching, and here we are told,

at the end of chapter 19 and the beginning of chapter 20,

how Christ's enemies,

the high priests and scribes,

made a determined attack,

demanding He reveal who authorised Him,

and to say

by what right

and by what authority He acted. But better I read it.

And he taught daily in the temple

But the chief priests and the scribes

sought to destroy him

and could not find what they might do, for all people were waiting to hear him.

On one of those days as he taught the people in the temple,

the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders,

and spoke unto him, saying,

Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who gave you this authority?

And he answered and said unto them:

I will ask you one thing, and answer me:

the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?

And they reasoned with themselves, saying,

If we shall say, From heaven, he will say,

Why then believed ye him not?

But and if we say, Of men, all the people will stone us,

for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.

And they answered that they could not tell whence it was.

And Jesus said unto them,

Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.

Why do you read this to us?

It was well that Christ didn't answer when they berated Him.

What does this have to do with vineyard workers?

Wait a minute, it all comes together.

You are wrong that Jesus didn't answer.

He answered very precisely,

twice even.

He called on a witness to His power that they could not challenge.

Then He showed them

they had neither power nor any right over Him,

as they were acting from fear of the people,

submitting to the mob,

from fear of death.

But the true power, isn't it,

consists not in following others, but in being followed.

Fearing the people and heeding them,

they showed that power

eluded them and belonged to the people.

It is the people Christ now addresses,

to accuse them of opposing Him.

This I like very much!

The content of vineyard parable

condemns the unworthy Jewish leaders for opposing the Messiah.

As you will now see.

Then he began to speak to the people this parable:

A man planted a vineyard,

let it forth to husbandmen and went abroad for a long time.

At harvest time he sent a servant to the husbandmen,

so they should give him the fruit of the vineyard.

But the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty handed.

And again he sent another servant

and they beat him also,

and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty handed.

And again he sent a third, and they wounded him also

and cast him out.

Then the lord of the vineyard said to himself:

What shall I do?

I will send my beloved son,

hopefully they will reverence him.

But when the husbandmen saw him,

they reasoned among themselves, saying

This is the heir,

let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.

So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?

He shall come

and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others.

And when they heard it, they said:

God forbid.

And he beheld them, and said:

What is this that is written?

The stone which the builders rejected,

became the head of the corner.

Whosoever shall fall upon it shall be broken,

on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

The chief priests and the scribes sought to lay hands on him,

but they feared the people.

For they perceived

that he had spoken this parable against them.

To whom and to what, I ask you,

does the parable of the vineyard refer?

I don't understand your objection.

The high priests and scribes were offended

because they knew they were like the workers in this parable.

But of what exactly were they accused?

Of not practising the true doctrine.

This much seems obvious.

These villains lived like mushrooms, for their own pleasure.

They smoked tobacco, drank brandy,

they ate dead flesh, made offerings of it to their god,

they also married,

they judged others and waged war.

Does such mockery befit your age and rank?

Don't listen to him, Olga.

I am convinced…

I beg your pardon.

We are trying to have a serious discussion with you.

Merely tell me,

in Gospel parable,

the vineyard workers perish

because they kill their master's son and heir.

That is what is essential, according to the Gospel.

Why do you omit this fact?

Because it refers to the fate of Christ,

which, of course, has its own importance and value,

but is not essential to the only thing necessary.

Namely?

To follow Gospel teachings

whereby we attain the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Wait!

Wait one moment.

It is all mixed up in my head.

What is it about, in fact?

Nikolai, you hold the Gospels in your hand,

please tell me

what comes next in the chapter, after the parable.

It says

we must render unto Caesar what is Caesar's

then it tells of the resurrection of dead,

that the dead will be resurrected

because God is not of the dead, but of the living.

Then,

it shows that Christ

is not the son of David, but the son of God.

And the final verses are against the hypocrisy and vanity of the scribes.

You see, Olga, the Gospels

teach that we must recognise the state's role in worldly affairs

and must believe in the resurrection of the dead

and that Christ is not an ordinary man,

but the Son of God.

Can we draw conclusions from a chapter

written who knows when and by who knows whom?

This time, I am in no doubt

and I don't have to look it up to know it's in a single chapter…

And…

Sorry, I became confused,

but I don't agree with you.

I don't want to believe that it is only in one chapter,

I know that in all four Gospels

there is talk of the resurrection,

as well as the divinity of Christ,

particularly in John,

which is also read at funerals.

As for the notion that it is unknown when or by whom they were written,

even liberal German criticism allows

that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin,

from the 1st century A.D.

And in the 13th edition of Renan's “Life of Jesus”,

I think I saw a retraction regarding the fourth Gospel.

Right,

one must keep up with the experts.

The unfortunate thing is that, whatever the Gospels might be,

no matter when they were written or by whom,

there is no Gospel more plausible to you, Olga.

None more consonant with your doctrine.

What do you mean there isn't?

What about the fifth?

In which Christ does not appear, but is only about animal sacrifice

and military service.

Oh no! You as well?

How shameful!

The more you and your cronies tease Olga,

the more I shall take her side.

Olga, I'm certain

you want to tackle Christianity honestly.

Your Gospel, although it does not resemble ours,

is almost the same.

The way they used to write books titled: “The spirit of M. de Montesquieu”,

“The spirit of Fénelon”,

you and your teachers

have tried to write “The Spirit of the Gospels”.

A pity that none of you

has written a brochure called:

“The Spirit of Christianity,

“according to the doctrine of so and so…”

You must have some kind of…

catechism,

for the rest of us,

we simple people,

lest we lose the thread of all these variations.

Because, in effect,

we are told that the essentials are found in the Sermon on the Mount,

or they inform us… suddenly…

that first we must work the land by the sweat of our brows,

although this is not in the Gospels, but in Genesis,

where it is said of the throes of labour,

although it is not a commandment,

but only a sad fate.

And we are also told we must give everything to the poor,

then not to give anything to anyone.

For, money is Evil

and you must not do evil to others, but only to yourself and your family.

For others you must only toil.

After that we are told

to do nothing, only to meditate.

We are even told that a woman's purpose

is to give birth to as many healthy children as possible

and then, all of a sudden, that there's no such thing.

And then,

apropos of what we have on our plates,

we are told to stop eating meat,

and that is the first step,

but

nobody knows why it is the first.

Then brandy is condemned,

and tobacco,

then pancakes.

And now, we discover, my dear Ingrida,

that military service is the greatest evil

and that the main duty of the Christian is to refuse it,

but he who is conscripted

is already a saint.

Maybe I'm talking nonsense,

but that's not my fault.

It's impossible not to get confused!

I too think our doctrine needs to be summarised.

Yes.

A summary is being written, apparently.

But until then,

could you, please,

in a few words,

tell us what, to you, is the essence of the Gospel?

To me it is obviously the great principle

of not employing violence to oppose Evil.

And where does tobacco come in?

What tobacco?

I'm asking you what connection is there between non-violence

and abstinence from tobacco, brandy, meat,

amorous liaisons?

To me the connection seems clear.

Such depraved habits stultify man

and weaken the voice of his rational or moral conscience.

That's why soldiers are plied with drink before a battle!

Especially if it is a losing battle.

The principle of non-violence is important in itself,

whether or not it justifies the demands of asceticism.

In your opinion, Olga,

if we don't oppose Evil by force,

Evil will disappear by itself.

Therefore, Evil persists only because we oppose it.

Or because of our measures against it,

as it has no power of its own.

So Evil does not even exist,

it arises as a result of the false opinion that it does exist

and we act accordingly, is that it?

Olga?

Yes.

But if Evil has no real existence,

how do you explain the astounding failure of Christ's mission in history?

As you say, it did not succeed,

ultimately nothing came of it.

In fact, it did more harm than good.

Why so?

The odd question!

But you consider that Christ preached

the authentic good

with more clarity, force and perseverance than anyone else.

- Agreed? - Yes.

And the real Good consists in not opposing Evil by force,

that is, an illusory Evil, since Evil doesn't exist.

Not only did Christ preach the Good,

but He Himself met the demands of that Good,

enduring martyrdom without resistance.

According to you, Christ died and was not resurrected. Perfect.

By His example, thousands of followers met the same fate.

Perfect.

What came of that, in your opinion?

Would you have wanted angels to place shining crowns on those martyrs' heads…

and…

bring them to the Garden of Heaven in reward for their heroism?

No, why do you say that?

Like myself, I hope, you certainly wish

for all your family, alive or dead, to enjoy all that is good.

However, not what we want matters, but what, as you say,

resulted from the teachings and sacrifices of Christ and His disciples.

Resulted for whom? For them?

For them, we know that it resulted in a cruel death.

Given their moral heroism, they willingly submitted to it,

not to be given shining crowns, but genuinely to do good

to others, to all mankind.

So I ask you,

what good did their martyrdom do to mankind?

As the old saying goes:

“the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

That's right,

but according to you, the Church has distorted authentic Christianity,

which mankind has now almost forgotten,

and 18 centuries later it was necessary to start all over again.

Without any guarantee of success, that is, without hope.

Why without hope?

Surely you do not deny that Christ and the primitive Christians

gave up their souls for this cause,

and even their lives.

If in the end, as you say, nothing came out of it,

then on what are the hopes of a different outcome based?

All this has an obvious, constant and absolutely identical outcome

for the founders, distorters,

destroyers and reformers.

They all died in the past,

they die now, and will die in future,

and the cause of the Good, the preaching of the truth,

has not produced and is unlikely to produce

anything but death.

What does that mean?

How strange:

the Evil, which doesn't exist, always triumphs,

and the Good always crumbles into the abyss.

But do the wicked not die?

They do, many of them.

But the power of Evil merely confirms the kingdom of death,

whereas the power of Good is contradicted by it.

In fact,

Evil is evidently more powerful than Good,

and if this is taken as the sole real evidence,

then we must admit the world is the result of a bad principle.

But how can people, who assume they live in the real world,

and, consequently, recognise the preponderance of Evil over Good,

say that Evil does not exist

and therefore needs not be fought?

My mind refuses to comprehend such a thing.

And I expect Olga to help me.

First, show us how you break the impasse!

It's simple.

Evil does exist.

It does not manifest itself only through the absence of Good,

but also through resistance

and a preponderance of inferior over superior qualities

in every sphere of existence.

There is an individual Evil,

manifested by the fact that what is inferior in man,

his bestial and violent instincts,

opposes his loftiest aspirations

and, in the vast majority of people, dominates them.

There is a social Evil,

which resides in the fact that the masses of people,

individually subservient to Evil,

oppose the redeeming efforts of the best and vanquish them.

Finally,

in man there exists physical Evil,

when the lower material elements of the body

oppose the living and luminous force

that unites them in the wonderful form of the organism.

They oppose this form and break it,

destroying the real foundation of everything that is higher.

It is the extreme Evil named Death.

And if we allow that the victory

of this extreme physical Evil

is final and absolute,

then we cannot regard as a serious success

any of the victories of Good

in the moral, individual, or social sphere.

Indeed,

let us imagine that a man of good,

Socrates, for example,

has not only triumphed over his inner enemies,

his sordid passions,

but has also succeeded in rectifying his public enemies,

in transforming Greek society.

What use

would this ephemeral, superficial victory over Evil be,

if Evil ultimately triumphs over life,

at the deepest level of being?

What if the real winners are the microbes of physical decay?

No moral text could ever protect us against despair

and extreme pessimism.

I've heard this before,

but how do you defend yourself in the face of despair?

One thing alone protects us:

the true Resurrection.

We know that the battle between Good and Evil

is waged not only in the soul and society,

but also more deeply, in the physical world.

And here,

we know there has already been a victory of the good principle of life,

in the form of a personal resurrection.

We await only one thing:

the victories that will come through the resurrection of all.

And here, even Evil finds its meaning,

in that it serves the realisation, fulfillment

and triumph of the Good.

If death is stronger than mortal life,

then eternal resurrection is stronger than both.

The Kingdom of God

is the Kingdom of Life

which triumphs through the Resurrection.

And in this life, the Good is actual, accomplished, final.

Here is the entire power of Christ's work.

Here can be seen His true love for us

and ours for Him.

Everything else is nothing but a condition, a path, a phase.

Without faith in the actual Resurrection of the One

and without the expectation of the future resurrection of all,

the Kingdom of God is mere words.

And, in fact, it is reduced to a kingdom of death.

How so?

But, isn't it so,

by not recognising Death as such, as everyone does,

the fact that people have died, die and will die,

you elevate death to the status of an absolute law

without exceptions, according to you.

What would we call the world where Death holds absolute sway,

if not the “kingdom of death”?

And what else is your God's Kingdom on earth,

if not a vain,

arbitrary euphemism for the “Kingdom of Death”?

I too think it is vain because

we don't replace a known with an unknown value.

Nobody has seen God and nobody knows what His kingdom is.

Whereas we have all seen people and animals die

and we know that no one escapes this world's sovereign, Death.

Then why replace this “a” with an “x”?

It would only create confusion and horrify the little ones.

I don't understand what we are talking about.

Certainly, death is an interesting phenomenon.

We can call it “law,”

because it is a constant amongst living things,

and inevitable for them.

We can also speak of its absolute character

since until now no exception to it has been observed.

But what vital importance can this have

to the true Christian doctrine,

which through the voice of our conscience

speaks to us only of what we must do here and now?

It's clear that the voice of our conscience

deals only with what we can or cannot do.

Our conscience is silent, because it cannot speak of death.

No matter how important it is to our present experiences and desires,

death does not depend of our will

and therefore it can have no moral significance for us.

Viewed thus, death is a fact as neutral as bad weather.

And if I allow as an inevitable fact that the weather is periodically bad,

and suffer because of it,

should I call it

“kingdom of bad weather” rather than “kingdom of God”?

No, certainly not.

Firstly, bad weather reigns only in London.

Here, in our land,

we are indifferent to its kingdom.

Then, your analogy doesn't stand up.

Even in bad weather we can glorify God.

Whereas the dead do not glorify God.

This is why, as his Excellency remarked,

this world might sooner be called Death's rather than God's kingdom.

Please…

Why must you always speak to us of names?

It's tedious!

And besides, is it really a question of names?

Olga, why don't you tell us

what you actually understand by the Kingdom of God

and His righteousness?

By that I understand a state,

in which people act only in accordance with their conscience,

thereby fulfilling the will of God,

which prescribes for them only the pure Good.

In other words, the voice of conscience, in your opinion,

speaks to us only of what we have to do here and now.

Of course.

Does the conscience tell you nothing

about a wrong done in adolescence,

to a person long dead?

Such a reminder means that I must not do the same again now.

It's not really like that, but it's not worth dwelling on it.

I wish merely to remind you of another limit of our conscience,

a more obvious one.

Moralists long compared the voice of the conscience

to the genius or demon that accompanied Socrates,

protecting him from blameworthy actions,

but giving no positive indication of what he had to do.

We can say the same thing about the conscience.

How so?

Does my conscience not suggest

that I help my neighbour if he is in need or in danger?

I'm glad to hear you say so.

But if you examine such cases thoroughly,

you will see that the role of the conscience is purely negative.

It merely asks you

not to remain indifferent or inactive when faced with a neighbour in need,

but as to what exactly you should do, and how to do it,

the conscience does not say.

Undoubtedly.

Because it depends on the circumstances,

on my situation and that of the neighbour to be helped.

Obviously.

But gauging and understanding

circumstances and situations, depend not on the conscience,

but on the intellect.

But can we separate reason from the conscience?

They don't need to be separated, only to be differentiated.

Precisely because in reality, sometimes, besides separation,

there arises an opposition between conscience and intellect.

If they were one and the same thing,

how could the intellect enable acts

not only alien to morality, but even immoral?

That is what happens, is it not?

We might help somebody by means of the intellect,

but with a bad conscience.

For example,

if I give food and drink

to a needy man, heap him with charitable works,

in order to make him my accomplice

in committing a fraud or some other evil deed.

Yes, it's elementary,

but what conclusion do you draw?

Well, it is this. If the voice of the conscience,

essential for warning us and admonishing us,

provides us with no positive

or well defined indications as to how to act,

and our goodwill requires the services of the intellect,

although the intellect seems a doubtful servant,

since it is able and willing

to serve these two masters,

Good and Evil,

then,

in order to accomplish God's will

and to achieve the Kingdom of God,

what is needed,

besides the conscience and intellect, is a third thing.

And what would this be, according to you?

In short, the inspiration of the Good

or the positive and direct action of the Good principle over and within us.

With such oversight from above,

the intellect and conscience become trusty helpmeets of the Good.

And morality, instead of being a behaviour always under suspicion,

becomes living within the Good.

Which is to say,

the organic development

and perfection of man as a whole, on the interior and exterior,

of the person and society,

of the people and mankind.

In order that they be fulfilled in a living union

of the resurrected past and embodied future

in the present of the Kingdom of God,

which, as it is on earth,

will be on a new Earth,

united through love with a new Heaven.

I have nothing against such poetic metaphors,

but why do you think those who fulfil the divine will,

according to the Gospel,

lack the inspiration of the Good?

Not merely because in what they do I see neither signs of such inspiration,

nor the urging of free and immeasurable love,

for God provides without measure.

I don't see any good, serene peace

arising from the joy of receiving these gifts,

even if they are only incipient.

If I assume you lack religious inspiration,

it is because you deem it unnecessary.

If the good is confined to rules, what room is there for inspiration?

The Rule has been given once and for all,

it is fixed and identical for all.

He who gave the rule

died long ago

and, according to you, He was not resurrected

and therefore, to us He has no living and personal existence.

The absolute

and primordial Good

doesn't appear to you as a father of the spirit and light,

who might enlighten and inspire you,

but as a master,

a parsimonious master,

who has sent you,

his mercenaries, to tend his vineyard,

while he, living abroad,

sends his emissaries to bring back his earnings.

As if we created this image arbitrarily!

No.

But arbitrarily, you view it as the norm for man's relationship with the deity,

arbitrarily purging the essence from the Gospel text,

namely,

that he reveals to us His son and heir,

in whom dwells the true norm for the relationship between God and man.

You see Him only as a master,

only the duties toward the master, the will of the master.

But let me tell you that:

As long as your master

only imposes duties on you, demands you to obey his will,

I don't see how you can prove to me

that he is the true master rather than an impostor.

What if my reason and conscience tell me

that the will of the master expresses the purest good?

I'm sorry, that's not what I meant.

I don't deny he wills the good, but does that mean he himself is good?

How could he be otherwise?

I thought the goodness of a man resides not in what he requires of others,

but in what he himself does.

If you find what I say unclear, here's a concrete historical example.

The Muscovite tsar, Ivan the Terrible,

in an well known letter,

asks Prince Andrei Kurbsky

to show his supreme goodness, and loftiest moral heroism,

by ceasing to oppose Evil and accepting to die as a martyr for the truth.

Here, the master's will was good, by what he demanded of him,

but that doesn't mean the master, who demanded the good was himself good.

Clearly, although to suffer for the truth is the supreme moral virtue,

it does Ivan the Terrible no credit,

since in this case, he was not the martyr, but the executioner.

What do you mean by that?

Until Olga shows me the goodness behind her master's actions,

rather than merely his verbal commands to his workers,

I will remain convinced

that this master who asks others to do good, but himself does not,

who lays down obligations, but does not show love,

who does not show you his face, but lives abroad, incognito,

I will remain convinced he is none other than “the god of this age”.

How awful!

I quote from Verdi.

- I'm listing every lyrical ode… - I know, you're a melomaniac.

…dedicated to Bacchus. It's kind of a game.

Do you recognise this one?

Excuse me a moment!

Judith?

One more question.

How is the colonel? Any less agitated?

Yes, he feels better.

Dr. Blumenfeld will arrive tomorrow.

He's coming tomorrow, good. He seems a good doctor.

Yes.

And another thing, please.

It would be better if the door remained shut at all times.

Yes, of course.

Yes, Edouard.

And look,

István makes his entrance to the sound of music. Wonderful!

Charming.

Thank you. That was a short parenthesis while we waited for you, gentlemen.

Always at your service.

If we were not holding brandy, we would clap.

Grazie!

Forgive me…

I don't want to interrupt the musical interlude,

but I wish with all my soul to return to our conversation,

to prevent any unfortunate misunderstanding.

But of course.

I am in no doubt, Olga, that by some honest mistake,

you take the true God to be a skilled imposter.

The imposter's skill is, for you, a mitigating circumstance.

Nor did I understand at first how things stood.

And now I am in no doubt,

and you will understand how I feel

when I gaze upon the deceptive, devious mask of the Good.

- You don't have long for poetry. - I assure you…

It's vexing!

I assure you I do not feel at all vexed.

A general and rather interesting question has been posed,

and it surprises me that my interlocutor believes

that the question is addressed only to me,

but not to him.

You ask that I point out my master's good deeds,

acts to prove he is the principle of Good rather than Evil.

And you?

What good deeds can you show me that do not also come from my master?

He has already shown you a deed on which all the rest is founded.

Which one?

The true victory over Evil through the true Resurrection.

Only thereby, I repeat, is God's Kingdom revealed to us.

Without it, there is only the kingdom of death, sin and the devil.

The Resurrection, not figuratively, but literally,

there is the title of the true God.

Yes, if you wish to believe in such a mythology.

I asked you for demonstrable facts, not beliefs.

Olga,

we both come from the same faith or, if you like, mythology,

but I go all the way.

Whereas you illogically, arbitrarily stop even before you start.

But do you acknowledge the power of the Good

and its future triumph on earth?

Yes.

Is it a fact or a belief?

It is a reasonable belief.

How delightful!

As I learned at the seminary, reason demands,

that we disallow that which is not sufficiently grounded.

Tell me, please,

as long as you recognise that Good has the power morally to rectify

and perfect man and mankind,

on what do you base your claim that Good is powerless in the face of death?

I think rather you should say why you attribute to Good

a power that transcends the moral sphere?

I shall tell you.

Once I believe in the Good and its power,

and in the idea of the “power of good” its absolute superiority is asserted,

then I recognise that this power is unlimited,

and nothing can stop me believing in the truth of the Resurrection,

historically proven truth.

If you had told us you were indifferent to the Christian faith

and that to you, the Resurrection is a myth,

I would have kept to myself the animosity

to your way of thinking that I have been unable to conceal.

We do not accuse of deception him who makes a mistake.

And to be angry at someone for a theoretical error

makes you look petty, faithless, and heartless.

Whoever truly believes, and is freed from coarseness,

from pettiness of soul and from wickedness,

must show a good disposition when faced with a frank and sincere opponent,

in other words, an honest opponent, who denies religious truths.

Nowadays, it is rare.

You don't know how much I rejoice at a declared opponent of Christianity.

In almost all of them,

I am prepared to see a future Paul the Apostle,

whereas in the zealous defenders of Christianity

I see Judas the traitor.

But you, Olga, you have expressed yourself so sincerely,

that I refuse to class you with today's countless Judases and Tartuffes.

I already foresee a time when I will feel toward you

the same good disposition awakened in me by many atheists and nonbelievers.

Since, fortunately,

we have established that neither atheists and unbelievers,

nor true Christians like Olga, represent the Antichrist,

it is time

that you reveal to us his true portrait.

So that was what you were aiming at!

Of the many depictions of Christ,

some by artists of genius,

is there any that satisfies you?

I for one know of no satisfactory depiction.

I don't even think there could be one,

as long as Christ is an individual embodiment,

unique in his own way

and resembling nothing else,

of His own essence, the Good.

Not even genius would be enough in order to depict such a thing.

The same goes for the Antichrist.

He is an embodiment of Evil that is just as individual,

unique in its completeness and fullness. We cannot show his portrait.

In ecclesiastical literature,

we find only his passport, with his distinguishing marks.

And Edouard, as you yourself confessed to us,

you have no knack for painting.

Therefore, we don't require his portrait,

God forbid!

Rather, explain to us, Nikolai, why he is needed

and what, in your opinion, is the nature of his plan,

and finally, tell us

when he will arrive.

I can answer you better than you would have thought.

Some years ago,

a fellow seminary student, who later became a monk

was dying and gave me a manuscript he cherished,

but which he had not been able to publish.

The title is, A Short Story of the Antichrist.

Although it takes the form of a fiction, or a future history,

to me the work encapsulates

everything which, according to scripture, to the Church and common sense,

can definitely be said on the subject.

Is it the work of our old friend, Umberto?

No, he had a fancier name.

Pansophius.

Pan Sofius? A Pole?

Not at all.

He came from a family of Russian priests.

If you will allow me to go to my room,

I will fetch the manuscript and read it to you. It is not thick.

Your room is an Ali Baba's cave.

Certainly, do go!

- But don't forget to come back! - Naturally.

I don't know whether my eyesight is dimming with age,

or whether something has changed in nature,

but I notice that in no season or place are the days bright any longer,

the perfect clarity to which we were once accustomed,

regardless of clime.

Today, for example, there was not a cloud in the sky,

we are quite far away from the sea,

and yet, everything seemed dusted with something gauzy,

impalpable, of flawed clarity.

Did you notice, Ingrida?

Yes, it has been happening for a few years.

I have been observing it since last year.

Not only in the air, but also in my soul,

where there is no perfect limpidity, as you put it, Edouard.

I feel a kind of disquiet,

a sense of foreboding.

I'm sure that you too, Olga, feel the same.

No, I notice nothing in particular.

The air seems to me unchanged.

Because you are too young.

You lack the terms of comparison.

But when we remember the seventies,

then we sense it.

I believe your first supposition was right, Edouard.

It is a symptom of worsening eyesight.

We have grown old, no doubt about it,

but nor is the earth growing any younger.

A kind of exhaustion can be felt on both sides.

But what is even more true,

as Andrei Nikolaevich says,

is that the devil's tail scatters fog across the created world.

It is also a sign of the Antichrist.

Yes, Ingrida,

no doubt about it.