Telescope

- Heavens, just have a look at it, so lovely color, I like the tube and the support is convenient!? – Basil and his friend had their eyes glued at the new gift from Basil’s parents for A-level in all subjects in academic term. It was an expensive American telescope. - My father has been saving money for it for a long time. It costs a bomb!!! - exclaimed Basil, intending to have a sit right beside his gift. - Peter, I can hardly believe my eyes! It’s a miracle!!! It is a wonder!!! It has always been a dream of mine to have a telescope like this, and here I am, it is right in front of me, in my room!!! In this huge strange box!!! And you are the witness of the event!!!
- Hey, you must yawl now like an ancient Greek «The Gods have sent me the blessing from the Mount Olympus!» The Greeks knew what’s what in the night sky, didn’t they? – taunted his friend, another boy. - Your Mom and Dad have nicely done. It has really taken them several years to afford buying the thing!
- Оh, I like the smell! – Basil continued to admire, not listening to his friend. - The tube is smelling with miracles, discoveries and space secrets! Incredible!!! I’ll be studying space! Astrophysics!!!! It is my dream, Peter! The dark night sky, I’m closed like an ancient saxon druid, with this hat on, conic with stars, and with my diary full of sky supervision notes!!!! Fantastic!!!
Basil’s friend, Peter Yevseyev, was a kind, fair-haired boy with rosy cheeks. They had become best friends from the fifth class, and till now they continued to come through all joys and misfortunes of school life together. They were pupils of the same class of the local humanitarian grammar school, both made success in the same subjects, had the same hobbies and views. Almost in all crucial moments of life they were beside each other.
- I will be the astrophysicist! Astrophysicist! I will count the length of the Milky Way, I will measure the weights of all comets, I will learn the structure of all planets! - danced around of his new telescope Basil. -Yeah, yeah, yeah!!!!! It’s a miracle!!! Miracle!!!  And at last it has happened! How many years, how long I’ve been dreaming of it, ohhh, it was like an eternity for me! And now! I will be the professor! I will have an observatory, I know, I will fly to space. To Mars or even further!!!!!! It-is-a-beau-ti-ful-life, Peter!!!!!
- Yes, Basil, - Peter was looking at his friend enthusiastically. His clear blue eyes were sparkling. He did not envy at all; and his feeling of joy for his friend was as if he on his own would have got the gift, and it would have been his dream to get it as well. Peter’s dream had nothing to do with astrophysics. Unlike Basil, he would think about the career of a priest, or a teacher of theology in the local parochial school. His heart has been caught by the Christian philosophy of love for ages. And even now, when his best friend was jumping with joy around of his one-eyed «Orion», his own fingers were touching the corns of wooden rosary in the pocket, and he was praying silently. Yesterday he took his sister’s writing-book away from her. It was full of intimate girly secrets. She retaliated by missing her scheduled walk with their family pet. Shepherd Snaps took offence as well, and scrunched a new pair of Mom’s court shoes, and torn Mom’s expensive custom-made scarf to pieces. The sister was given a good hiding for all this, and Peter was on pins and needles now, blaming himself.
- You are not glad for me, - said Basil to Peter hastily. - This «Orion» costs a fortune, and you can use it together with me! You are my friend, aren’t you? We are friends. Don’t you catch or what?? Making a point in sitting here, with a boring face. Relax! Your Granny is not here. And she will preachify you about “how dare you offend girls” some other day.
At these words Peter became even more embarrassed, but he took a grip on himself and said:
- Bas, are you nuts?! It will take me a good half of life to realize, how happy you are with your own optics at last! I have no idea, what present my parents could give to me, if they would love me, like your parents love you! Or should I jump onto your chandelier and hang on it for joy? How to make you believe that I’m happy for you, too? Really!
Basil scratched his head over the chandelier.
- No, the thing is tabued! By Mom. She was shopping around, selecting it so tastefully, you know. It will make her nervous. Though you are my best friend, I have no rights on chandelier, Pete. 
- I know, - answered Peter and cheered up completely, - let's watch the sky at last!!! Forget the chandeliers! It was a bad idea!!
- Ok, - took up Basil with proud and enthusiasm, - it will be our first experience, our dialogue with the universe!
- Оh! - echoed Peter. He wrinkled his forehead. - That’s quite overstated!
- Why is that quite overstated? - asked Basil with a bit of offend.
- Your dialogue with the universe has started since the day of your birth. Even earlier, before the time you had been a cell in your Mother’s belly.
- You were a cell in your Mother’s belly as well, - taunted Basil.
- I do not deny. My Mom told me that by herself. The whole nine months.
- Do not tell lies. You told me ten months, till doctors had to intrude to force you out! If you had a chance, you would stay for 11 months there, freak!
- Yes, it was so, - Peter said sadly, - but I meant the theory.
- And your Mother had to take the course of medical treatment for a month because of you, sitting there longer than one needed, lazybones, like a frustrated girl! I was not so whimsy in my Mother’s belly!
- Bosh, I simply could not catch up with the right moment!
- That’s why you will never become the astrophysicist! A comet will fall down, and you will be sleeping, because you will not catch up with the moment!
- I do not want to be the astrophysicist! You know! I’m not interested in your staff, glasses and optics! I want to work with people. Their souls!!!
- Oh! We have just found the right comforter of people! – mumbled Basil.
- Not comforter, but the priest, - said Peter proudly, - hey, you are envying, aren’t you?
Basil stopped watching through his telescope and glared at Peter. His view was winter-cold.
- I envying you? – asked Basil through his teeth. - There’s no God at all!
- God exists! – said Peter firmly.
- Ha, it’s your Grandfather Panktrath, who tells you stories about Kind God. I always regretted my best friend to come of a peasant family. My Father is the mathematician!
- And the atheist as well!
- So what! And your Grandfather is simple-minded, always pokes his snub nose into not his business, and asks the silliest questions very timely!
- Wise and deep questions, let me correct you, he passed through the War terror*, was within an inch of death… While you and your Father see the world as a set of rules and formulas!
- Nothing of the kind! My Mum is engaged in literature! And I know about Dostoevsky even more, than he knew about himself!
- Who would hesitate? If you were so clever, the telescope, you are holding now, would be totally useless gift to you…
- Yes, - confirmed with pleasure Basil. - You are right as always, in the end! But not «in the middle»! I’m the King of the middle!
- Yeah, a laughing stock King!
- You take after you clever Grandfather. Amazing! How could he, with his ill thoughts, survive in the War? And now he is influencing on the youth character in such a bad way. Better tomorrow is better science.
- Yes, however, a better tomorrow is impossible without God, - said Peter with offend.
- Stop it, or I won’t let you watch through the ocular! – scolded Basil.
- Have you focused it?
- Yes, - he whispered, - come, take a look.
Peter bent over and watched in the ocular. The moon was so bright there, that his eye seemed to be blind for a moment. All in grey and black spots, with its pale invisible rays, it was like a magnet, which was attracting the view of a curious watcher.
- Cool! - Peter said. - Wow, it is so huge! Bright! Majestic! Hangs in the sky and is proud of itself!!! God, thank you for it! – said Peter in admiration, and proceeded watching at the Star as if it was not so far from him.
Suddenly Basil grasped Peter at his sleeve and pushed him rudely away from the telescope!
- The God, again and again! Stop it, or you’ll get a slap in face from me. You are insulting my scientific feelings… And your Grandfather, he has a mess in his old head and made a mess with your head!
Peter gave more steps aside of the telescope and stared at Basil in grief.
- Hey, who, do you think, created the Moon and the other stars?
- I do not think of it at all! I simply enjoy the watching! There was a powerful nuclear explosion once upon a time, and everything appeared as the result of it …. The universe cannot be created by anybody, it creates itself on its own. It was the right time, and the most beautiful event happened: the universe was born… How exactly was it? Frankly, I don’t care…
- If you trusted in God, you would feel yourself much better! You would look at any star of the Universe like an initiated. Not like a man, who must die.
That day Basil could not stand Peter’s theology a bit any more. The next second Basil’s hand flashed in front of Peter‘s eyes, and he felt his cheek burning. Peter forgot all his theology at once and answered the impudence with Basil’s medicine, with a strong slap in his face.
The next moment they grasped themselves at their clothes and fell down on the floor. It came to blows. Both working with the fists, they were making themselves black and blue without any pity on each other.
- You, holy freak!! - yelled Basil, like a wild animal, pressing with his palm on the nose and lips of Peter. Peter was desperately struggling to get himself loose, and as soon as he got out of clutches, he yelled at Basil:
- And you, freak without Faith!!!
Their yells added more oil on the fire, and the fight continued with even more tension and noise. Basil's parents came to the noise at last. They were shocked by the view of boys, who were already putting all their muscles into the work!
- Shame on you both!!! Stop it now!!! – roared the Basil’s Father. He put off his glasses and shaked angrily with his fist. - What’s happened? Failed to watch through one telescope together, comrades**? You don’t deserve to be the school pupils! Back to the nursery? I’ll arrange it for you! (he pronunciated the syllable «-rades» in «comrades» in a manner, that one would immediately think of grey military radars)
Both boys, in the shabby clothes, stood clumsy up from the floor. Peter ran out of the silent room as quickly as wind.
After the incident both kept silence for some days in their families, and their friendship in school ended up as suddenly as it began. They did not even look at each other. All their classmates were surprised, because everybody knew them to be the nearest and the dearest friends.
The school director somehow collected the rumours about the incident and, full of care to school reputation, proposed to both «guilty boys» to leave. He gave the argument: «In my school one uses his mind and logics to prove he is right, not yells and fists!»
Peter decided to be the scapegoat, he was the first to write his application. He asked not to trouble Basil with talks. Who needed talks, when everything was over?
Basil showed indifference to all this, stifled and stuffed his bad emotions away from his friends and family.
So was the friendship between the two smart boys broken... Basil’s parents considered Peter’s «drop out» to be Basil’s fault; therefore Basil was deprived of his telescope for the whole year. Frankly, they were looking for an opportunity to somehow get rid of «the apple-of-dischord-optics», but no chance occurred. Basil felt very anxious about the fact he could not watch the sky, and that his Orion could be simply thrown away. Unless Peter's words aching in his mind, and all unsettling emotions towards the story, he was still going to become the astrophysicist; maybe without faith in God, but the professor of science. He could not tell the truth how it was to his parents, because they didn’t know he would like to be a priest. And the parents’ decision to keep Basil off the telescope was fair, because they loved Peter as son’s best friend.
Peter, after coming home that day, upset and on the verge of emotions, told his parents everything, what had happened to him and Basil. And, to his surprise, and unless his worst forecast, he received praise, for the right attitude. They all made a martyr of him at once. His Grandfather Pankrath beamed with pleasure after his story; and to crown that all, he mentioned that once St. Nicholas gave a fair slap in face of Arius as well.
- My Grandson! – he added in a drawing manner in front of the Vlachernskaya Mother of God, that was hanging right in the corner of the kitchen, beautifully lightened by the oil icon lamp, and then crossed himself with wide gestures.
Peter had to forget about his friendship, because of Basil’s “tough nut” attitude towards Faith questions, while Faith was the core of his family life. He tried to get over it as he could, as his Grandfather told him to. But the quarrel would appear in his mind again and again. Sometimes his younger sister Maria, who forgave him for her stolen writing-book, heard him crying silently in the night, stifling sobs in his pillow.
«It’s because Basil, or because he left the school?» - she wondered, and each time before to fall asleep, she prayed for him anxiously.
Days passed, some years went by.
Peter graduated from his school. He was a young man by the time. As he dreamed, he moved to another city and continued to study in a theological seminary to become the priest. He was eager to study. He liked the Gospel theory classes, rethought his life, and used to compare all episodes from it with the Gospel stories. He would think he turned the incident between him and Basil to the point of departure to his destination… He had to get over it, he had to suffer for Faith. Captured by the thoughts once, at the lesson of Latin, he fell barely asleep. 
- All attention! – he was suddenly waken up by the loud voice of his Latin teacher, Father Varsonofiy! Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus est! (A man is born for thinking and doing!). And doing something for God’s glory!
    All students became suddenly alive. Father Varsonofiy stood silent at his table. Flapping his sleepy thoughts away, Peter tried to catch what was going on, and what the teacher was driving at.
The classroom door squeaked to open. A handsome young man came into the room. He was followed by the director of the seminary, Father Lev, with huge golden cross, hanging on his chest. The young man had a modest look, his nicely cut beard suited him.
The unfamiliar young man set back his shoulders and gazed over the classroom with love and care. Then he made a slight bow and watched at the director in an obedient manner.  All figure of Father Lev beamed with wisdom and devotion like the bright sun of his native land, Bulgaria. His strong voice honked like a trumpet, evaporating the silence from the classroom at once:
     - Dear students, brothers in Christ! I’m glad to introduce a new student to you. He is going to study in our seminary. His way to God wasn’t simple. He met even more difficulties on his way to Christ, than some of you. However, he has the strong decision to become the priest. And now he is going to tell about his life to you.
   The young man nodded, gave a slight smile to Father Lev. In his eyes one could suddenly read a big pain and grief.
- Well, I, - «the gonna be» priest said not loudly, - I did not trust in God before. I even denied his existence! «God doesn’t exist» were my words some years ago! May be I was mad then …, my dream was to become the scientist. I had a friend, who told me I was wrong. There was a hard quarrel between us, and I lost my best friend, because I was too proud of myself. Since then my life was cut like with a knife, into two parts -"before" and "after" the quarrel. I lost my Father very soon after the incident with my friend. He suddenly died of heart attack just right before his 50-years Anniversary.  Oh, he was so waiting for the celebration, had prepared special gifts for all of us, for all his family… My Mother appeared to be not able to put up with it. She is in insane asylum now. I visit her very often. I write the poems for her, about spring and flowers, just like my Father used to do it for her, when she was young and spent the time walking in the park with him. The loss of Father and the illness of Mother made me and my native sister much closer than ever before. She became like the only substitute of parents for me. It must be my fault, yes, it was my sin! I was blind, slowly making a nice cheerful hero of her to somehow comfort myself in such hard times for my family. I gave her all love, adored her, I began to live her life instead of my own life. The pain of loss made me do it… I could not realize in time, that I was becoming addicted to her. Bad news came like a thunder… One day I was told that she was in hospital, in coma, almost dead. I rushed off there, like a mad, damning all and everything… Nobody knew what happened to her. Poor dear, she got to them unconscious, with battered body, reeking with blood. Like a poor small fox that got into a trap. I was totally broken then, when I saw her beautiful golden hair, tousled of blood and scattered across the hospital bed. I fell down on my knees and yelled «Why, God, why?», and the hot tear drops rushed from eyes… I could not understand, how one could come through all terrible events, that took place in my life one after another. I was full of hatred to myself at that moment, looking at my sister dying.  Because I was standing at her bed, alive and breathing, while her life was depending on a thin tube, poking out of her small numb lips. 
I begged then, full of grief: «God, if you exist, save her, please. Do not let her die. If she stay alive, I will devote my life to you. If she is well again, I will devote all my life to you, I will do everything for Your Glory!»
It had been my tough dream to become the astrophysicist, and the most expensive thing, I had then, was the American "Orion". I got it as the present from my Father, when I studied in the grammar school. Because of the telescope, there was the quarrel with my best friend. I sold the thing without hesitation and got money for treatment of my sister. I prayed for her as hard as I could, words of prayer would somehow come into my mind. Doctors expected the worse and kept telling me, that she was a hopeless case. And when she began to recover, I went to the nearest monastery and had myself christened there. It was my promise to God...
Now, I have come to study in the seminary, and I want to become the priest, just like my best friend dreamed once… He was right then! God exists. And I wish he could forgive me.
After the last words the classroom was absorbed by the uttermost silence. One could imagine the angel of silence flied above the heads of young students. The story-teller stood with his head low, as if he was sharing anew all his feelings, his own story had galvanized into life again, with each student in the class….
The sincere words from the depth of his soul made all students hear the excited breathing and every heartbeat of each other.
- Hey, Bas! - a joyful exclamation shaked the silence suddenly. The young man lifted his head up and stared in grief at the end of the classroom. Peter was already running like a breeze to him, along desks, with noise, making the textbooks of his neighbours fall down on the floor.
- Bas! - Peter exclaimed one more time, and the next second Basil was swept off his feet by his friend.
They both tumbled down on the floor, right at the director’s feet. Father Lev looked at them with saucer eyes, utterly at loss for words.
- Bas, I missed you, how I missed you, Bas, - repeated Peter in tears, kissing Basil’s face, cheeks and forehead. Are you ok? - asked Peter, twirling Basil’s mess up hair.
The confused young man, crying of joy, whispered:
- Pete! Peter Yevseyev, it is you! My friend! – and gave him a strong hug.
- Brother!
- Pete!!!
      Students half stood up to look at the close friends, lying under the blackboard and classroom icons at the director’s feet, all in tears, mumbling to each other «Brother! Pete! Bas! Friend!» It was almost impossible to see such a moving scene in a usual educational institution, never mind the theological seminary, where the everyday life is quite strict, restraint and noble.
   Basil began to pay no attention to staring students, teacher and director, he was wet and red from tears. He looked right into the Peter’s eyes for instance and picked into his pocket in a clumsy uncoordinated manner. He drew the hand out with a small brown, slightly shabby, wooden rosary on his palm. Peter stood up slightly; puzzled and in amazement, he looked at it, and then at Basil again.
Basil’s voice turned to whisper with excitement and joy:
- Take it, it is yours. You lost it in my room at the telescope that day. Since then I have been carrying it around. My first prayer was right with it…
With words: «Beati pacifici» (those are happy, who establish the peace) the teacher of Latin, Father Varsonofiy, strict and busy, left the classroom.

* The Second World War.
** Comrades – in times of the Soviet Union, it was frequently used instead of «Sirs» or «Madams», or «Ladies and Gentlemen».