The Little Prince s Gospel

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The Little Prince’s Gospel

A novel by

Boris Grechin

Translated into Russian by

A Friend from Afar
 
ISBN: 9798162428794 (Independently published)
First edition

© Boris Grechin, text, 2026
© A Friend from Afar, translation, preface, 2026
 
A Russian lawyer in his late thirties, two years after the death of his daughter, is helped—if that is the word—by a woman who sews toys and lives year-round in a wooden dacha outside the city. She feeds hedgehogs, keeps a chapel in her attic, prays at night against a darkness the book calls the Jabberwock, and has no interest whatever in being anyone’s teacher, though a small community has gathered around her and calls her one. She is not, in any registered sense, a religious authority. She is not certain she is even Orthodox. What she has, she received in six weeks, fourteen years earlier, from a schoolteacher who left her a handwritten gospel in eight short chapters and then went abroad and died; and what the novel follows is what happens to that inheritance—how it is carried, how it is misunderstood, how it is argued over by a priest, a professor of philosophy, and a sixteen-year-old girl, and how it is finally handed on, imperfectly, to someone who is not even sure he wants it.
 
Table of Contents

Translator’s Preface
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five


Translator’s Preface


Translating a novel is a hard task indeed. Translating a novel as complex as The Little Prince’s Gospel by Boris Grechin is an almost hopeless endeavour.
I owe the readers of this book a confession. I am not innocent. The temptation to use this modern deus ex machina—I mean a large language model of AI—was too strong, so it did end in my requests, four in number, to produce an essay on this novel. The results were reasonably good—I even enjoyed reading them, to a degree. The first essay, written by the clever machine, processed and interpreted this novel as a careful, attentive reader might do. The second one treated it as a therapeutic case (its title was, I believe, The Fox in the Consulting Room). The third one handled the text as a factual description of a real religious phenomenon and delved deeply into the terminology of religious studies. The fourth one focused mainly on the artistic side, seeing the novel as a work of art deserving its own hermeneutics.
All four were articulate and intelligent, sometimes rising to the point of true ingenuity. I decided against using any of them, though, not just for ethical reasons. (Somehow, I cannot bring myself to see LLMs as our true partner and co-sufferer. I still believe they jingle with words and meanings—our precious human words, our hard-won meanings—too lightly.) The reason was that all four generated forewords somehow missed the point. Not that their arguments were false or indefensible—they were neither. The problem was that all the machine-written essays in question, while glibly talking about significant issues, have failed to put their finger on something that to me is the very essence of this novel.
What follows, then, is my own, fallible, limited, rather short, and rather clumsy attempt at speaking about the heart of the matter, the novel’s cor rei, that stubbornly resists attempts at categorisation, mine or otherwise.
What is this cor rei? The book you are holding in your hands is a contemporary Russian novel, and even very much so—but neither a satire of the Eastern autocracy, Shchedrin-style, nor a panegyric. It touches on social problems, but does it lightly. It is also a thorough literary investigation of why some modes and models of therapy (in a larger sense) work and others just don’t—the accuracy with which it shows the patient on the couch reminds one of Irvin Yalom’s Lying on the Couch or When Nietzsche Wept. It is also a credible, realistic, and unsentimental description of walking the spiritual path—well, its specific stage—by a modern educated sceptic. Today, ‘spiritual’ as a term is looked at with suspicion, having been compromised by all sorts of New Age religiosity and self-help literature—the book knows it, and doesn’t shun it. (Its parody of spirituality-lite, though brief, is indeed very funny.)
And then, it is an account of meeting true sainthood, unprepossessing, modest, utterly unremarkable, but sainthood all the same. It reminds me of such books as My Guru and His Disciple by Christopher Isherwood, books from which, judging by their titles, you expect high-flown religious gibberish, and on whose pages you then, against your expectations, meet a person—the person—and you feel very sorry you have not met this person in real life 
Darya, the central female figure of this book, is now—once I’ve finished and translated it—more real to me than many an acquaintance of mine. Will she become real for the reader, though? A question of all questions. The Little Prince’s Gospel poses a challenge to our conventional piety (or scepticism). It asks us: How much of it can you take? How much can you live with? The answers to these questions are anything but simple. The reader, unlike the translator, may see Darya as a fraud, a charlatan—and this point of view will make it quite another, though no less talented, story.
I haven’t said much, yet I feel I must stop short here, otherwise my preface, growing too lengthy, might spoil the pleasure of reading and enjoying this very Russian story. It took all my ingenuity to translate its strange Russianness into English. Every time Darya utters her charming little rhymes you may rest assured that those rhymes exist in Russian—and that in the speech of a Russian they would hardly ever be noticed, being a part of Russian cultural DNA. Have I transcribed this DNA well enough? An almost hopeless endeavour, to remind you of the beginning of my preface. And yet—I did my best.

A Friend from Afar

 
To all who supported me in the autumn of 2023.
 
Part One



1

The text before the reader is an attempt to tell of my acquaintance with a remarkable and outstanding person of unusual talents and particular depth—a quality very rare in our petty age. Literary prose—something in the way of a novella or a novel—now seems to me the best form for such an account. Whether it truly is, I unfortunately do not know.
What advises against the literary form is its frivolity. Who isn’t writing prose these days? The number of writers long ago overtook the number of readers, and the hope that my ‘literary account’ will be read by many is a tiny one. But then, I am writing mainly for myself. Or not only for myself? It would be more accurate to say: for the few. This is, it seems to me, something in the way how the first Gospels came to be written down—for very few—and read too in a narrow circle, in some Roman cellar or other . . .
(What an arrogant comparison! I meant to cross it out, but thought it better to leave it—or someone thought that for me. Evidently the writing of prose is akin to magic: at first you naively believe you will command imaginary people, kingdoms, and continents, and then animated objects and all manner of monsters go flying about you, and you understand nothing, and can only watch that dance with a kind of stupefaction.
The comparison with the first Gospels is a provocative one, but now, after letting it drop, I can no longer dispose of it as I please, because it may be true, and from the truth it is better not to step aside—as it is better not to step aside from the truth in a statement of claim, even if the claimant very much wants you to. Yes, this work is far heavier than it seemed to me.)
If the writer’s business is akin to magic, then I am a poor magician—a magician who does not know the spells—and that is the second consideration against my undertaking. My qualifications as a writer are plainly insufficient. I can set out facts and thoughts in coherent and literate Russian: it is part of a lawyer’s work, after all. But I have no notion of the so-called devices of fiction, and even less any skill in using them consistently. (Does any great writer use them consistently and consciously, or is that one of those myths for which the secondary school bears the responsibility? A question no one will give me a truthful answer to, though answers, of course, can be found in any quantity, to anyone’s taste.)
I will say more: even if I did have some skill in handling figures of speech, I would find it repellent to adorn my almost documentary narrative with them.
Almost—but perhaps not quite, otherwise I would not have written that ‘almost’ in the previous sentence. My account will strive for the greatest possible precision and reliability, but cannot promise it. My abilities are limited: I am afraid much of what has happened to me in the past month (an incomplete month: June is not yet over) remains unclear to me. A ten-year-old child’s account of a tangled court case can scarcely be fully trusted, even though the child himself will be convinced that he has conveyed it word for word—and how could it be otherwise, since he is already a mature and responsible person? How fortunate that I can see now: one may be a ‘mature and responsible person’ in our everyday world, and in another world be not even an adolescent but something like an infant.
A month ago I could not see even that, though I suppose I had a presentiment of it. Did I have a presentiment?
All the defects of literary prose, as compared with, say, diary entries, have now been named, yet I go on all the same. So there must be something to be said for it. What is a defect—its frivolity, its dispensability—turns out to be an advantage too. No sooner do I utter that standard writer’s incantation, the only one I have learned so far—‘All names and characters are fictitious, all resemblances coincidental’—than I need fear no one’s reproach for distorting what took place. For the reader, everything I write is already invention, everything is multiplied by zero in advance, and I can set out that invention as the Lord sees fit to lay it on my soul. Among the mountains of verbal rubbish about firing lasers, pointy-eared elves, shaggy-footed werewolves, and narrow-waisted beauties there will presumably be room for my composition too.
(But I cannot deviate from the truth for my own sake: it would be a dishonest act, even if no one but me ever discovered the dishonesty. I cannot—and yet I myself do not know the final truth either, and who can boast of knowing it? Pilate, with his question and his developed legal consciousness, seems to have understood this well. There—now Pilate has appeared from somewhere, though I swear that a moment before his appearance I was not thinking of him at all; he has turned up and impudently seated himself in the middle of this paragraph on his three-legged stool, or whatever it was Roman procurators sat on. Writing is a hellish occupation, and I will evidently regret it more than once before I reach the end.)
The kingfisher, with its long thin beak, sometimes flies into a tree and gets stuck there. So it is with me: I have not managed to fly even two pages before I am stuck in my thoughts about how to write, to what end, and for whom. The only way out is to move as quickly as possible to the beginning of my story. Before the story proper, however, I am obliged to say a few words about myself. Not that my modest person can be of interest to the reader—I am not very interesting even to myself—but it seems to be the accepted thing. I have little skill in this new business, and so I shall follow established tradition.

2

My name is Oleg Valeryevich Pozdeyev, I am thirty-nine years old— (‘—and I'm an alcoholic,’ my mocking mind prompts me—but no: I have never had any truly ruinous habits. One can hardly see the general colourlessness of a personality as a ruinous habit. And am I really colourless? Other people answer that question in different ways.)
I am a general-practice lawyer at a federal law firm called Voskhod (‘The Dawn’), with offices in almost every large city. You may approach us and make use of our services—though this mention is not an advertisement, and my place of work has no bearing on the story that follows. Before Voskhod I worked as a legal adviser at a large private clinic, and before that in the same position at a municipal polyclinic.
I almost love my present work, chiefly for the variety of tasks and duties: it lets me neither grow bored, nor rust, nor slide into dull routine. In any case, I try to do it conscientiously, and I am held in good standing at the firm.
A couple of years ago I thought about sitting the examination for the status of advocate and opening my own chambers. I have not entirely parted with those plans even now, but it seems they will have to wait . . .
I live in a one-room city flat, bought after my divorce, and I drive to work in a ten-year-old Daewoo Nexia, one of the three workhorses of the modern office proletariat (the others being the Renault Logan and the Lada Granta). My colleagues have told me more than once that my car is ‘beneath my status’, but for now the old girl suits me perfectly. I keep a financial cushion in a bank deposit, roughly equal to six months of my salary, against a sudden dismissal.
In short, I am the most ordinary ‘office shrimp’ (there is my first comparison, my first ‘figure of speech’, at which real literary masters would only laugh), an utterly unremarkable personality, an inconspicuous part of the human mass, someone about whom it would never occur to me to write a novel. Nor would it occur to anyone else—unless some new Gogol took it into his head to make me a new Akaky Akakievich. No, that’s not true: to be an Akaky Akakievich you need a particular kind of bending before life, of the sort where humiliation reaches the point of genuine pleasure. Akaky is a little man, and I am a middling one, and I have never suffered from complexes about my name either.
A great writer probably finds even a little man more interesting than a middling one: that hopeless dead end of the spirit, the ‘Kiev petty bourgeois’, the philistine deadly in his vulgarity. It was probably about me and people like me that the proletarian poet proposed, ‘Sooner wring the canaries’ heads, / Lest communism be beaten by canaries!’ Well, thank you kindly, danke sch;n (I studied German at school). I have never kept a canary, incidentally (I had a dog as a child—I’ll tell about her somewhere further on), and I don’t dream of restoring communism either: under it, you never know, every third philistine deprived of heroic impulses really would have his head wrung. Socialism with a human face is another matter, but the state will build it without my valuable advice. In all the elections so far I have voted for the incumbent president—God grant him health. I write the last with a light irony, but without any sarcasm, bitterness, or rancour.
I think that people like me are of no interest to any literature, whether pulp or grand. (I notice I am repeating myself, and I gaze helplessly at this repetition, not knowing how to rid myself of it without bringing down the previous paragraph. Real writers probably avoid repetitions instinctively, mechanically.) There is only one justification for my continuing to write this text: it is not about me. The comparison with the real Gospels is indeed very immodest, but is much said about Matthew in the Gospel of Matthew? And Matthew was only a tax collector: a profession rather like mine, thoroughly ‘office’ and unheroic. (I forgot to mention that at the start of my career I seriously considered service either in the tax inspectorate or in customs. Had I decided on the latter, I would probably be a customs inspector by now.) In this at least the first evangelist is close to me. In my flat there is a ‘red corner’, and a small icon to the left of the Saviour, the image of Levi Matthew. For a time I was almost ashamed of my red corner and would put it away before guests came, but now I have stopped doing that. Guests look at the image of the Saviour, sometimes their faces change, but they say nothing. Not that I have many guests, anyway . . .
It occurs to me that Matthew too had his unshameful successes in his worldly profession—achievements, vivid events, fleeced Jewish fat cats, none of which are mentioned in the Gospels. And quite right: too much honour for them. Yet he himself is mentioned—and in the fact that Holy Scripture did not disdain my colleague, an ordinary office canary, and even raised him to apostleship, it shows itself far more merciful than any fiction. I am not a fanatic in this, and I certainly do not think that all the books in the world ought to be reduced to sermons and the rest piled into one great bonfire. (‘Fanatic’, indeed—I don’t even know, I still don't know, whether I am a believing man, or in what I believe! And that despite the red corner? Yes, despite the red corner: it harms no one in any case.) I do not think so. But I would be ashamed to write merely for another’s entertainment, and I dare to hope that my motives are at least a little like those of the first evangelist, who by tradition is also depicted with a book in his hand.

3

I mentioned my divorce above. Nearly half of all marriages in Russia end in divorce, and there is nothing unusual in my story here. True, people in Russia rarely divorce amicably, and I am glad that at least in this small matter I depart from the statistical norm.
Kristina and I met while I was working as a legal adviser at the private clinic—she worked there as a reception secretary. Strange to say, but before Kristina I had never managed a long relationship with a girl: only brief acquaintances, some of them with stormy feelings, but for some reason not one of them ended in anything serious.
Kristina’s maiden name was Romashova, which for me became an additional ‘point of attraction’: I am very fond of Kuprin in general, and of The Duel and the tragic figure of Second Lieutenant Romashov in particular. I have loved Russian literature, in principle, since school, though I never had any desire to take it up professionally, as they say. I do not understand the substantive part of that profession, though my incomprehension is very far from any wish to throw stones at school teachers or university lecturers. The cultivation of humanism is, of course, an important matter, but ‘Hume-anism is just what those eggheads study in philosophy facilities’, as the fleet admiral says in one of those recent films (I think it’s Day of Radio—though Dross of Radio would be nearer the mark). Rather absurd, and Kristina would probably not have liked it, but there is something in that nonsensical joke that describes my attitude to literature, and not only mine. In the end, everything is good in its own time, so let us leave Kuprin to childhood and youth.
In Kristina herself, despite her maiden name, there was and is no tragic uncomprehendedness, no rootlessness; when the time came she changed her surname to mine without hesitation, though I had offered that she keep her maiden one: ‘Kristina Romashova’ does sound better than ‘Kristina Pozdeyeva’, after all. She merely waved it away with a smile: don’t talk nonsense.
But though there was nothing of Second Lieutenant Romashov in my ex-wife, it would be unfair to depict her as some cynical, hard-bitten little woman. Quite the contrary: through all eight years of our marriage she was for me an almost ideal woman—physically attractive, intelligent, delicate. I never once noticed in Kristina any of that purely feminine vulgar hystericism which complicates so many marriages. More than that, never in all our marriage, except perhaps in its final month, did it occur to me that anything threatened our relationship, or could threaten it.
And yet people sometimes part even when everything between them seems to be well: in the West, more and more often—in that sense my married life turned out to be very ‘Western’. Things had not gone altogether well between us, and it began, I think, in the very first year, in the period of growing used to one another.
I could not now say precisely what it was that turned out to be wrong. Perhaps—I make this reservation, it is only a guess—perhaps Kristina imagined that I was, as it were, just slightly, the tiniest bit, silently condemning her and her ‘earthiness’. There is no need to say that nothing of the kind was there. I do not consider myself some highly spiritual person, and of course it would never have occurred to me to complain, or even to hint with half a word, at the narrowness of someone’s interests. It was she who reproached herself with that narrowness, all the time, in jest: what a limited wife you’ve got! But you cannot go on joking the same joke with impunity forever—you can end up believing it yourself . . .
Above I wrote that there was nothing ‘Romashovian’ in Kristina, but that was not the whole truth. It is the truth nine-tenths of the way, even ninety-nine hundredths, but one hundredth remains, not understood by me, as it remains in every woman for any man. Kristina always wanted something more than simply working as a receptionist at a private clinic and afterwards as a manager at a furniture showroom (an unexpected change of profession that surprised me), and the point is not at all that she was ambitiously aiming for the chief physician’s chair, or the director’s chair at a furniture factory, or, say, the position of an oligarch’s wife. What she disliked was that in this world—a world, admittedly, tolerable enough—there is nothing beyond its everyday bearability. She disliked herself—but she lacked the strength, the time, the talent to change herself for the better. ‘I’d like to develop my imagination,’ she once let slip with a little laugh, ‘but I haven’t the faintest idea how to do it. I haven’t got enough imagination.’
With hindsight I think: what a familiar picture this must be for hundreds of women in our time! For hundreds of men too, probably.
Perhaps she even married me because she discerned in me, ‘in the depths of those honest grey eyes’ (her own expression), a hope for some secret knowledge of how to arrange life in the truest and most flawless way. If that was indeed so, then it is astonishing: I never assured her, or anyone else, that I possessed any such knowledge.
I remember that in the first year of our marriage we travelled a great deal, at weekends, and sometimes taking a day or two at our own expense, and her eyes always lit up when we began discussing how it would be good to get to Plyos this month, to Suzdal, or even, imagine it, to Novgorod. Those short trips seemed to promise the disclosure of an important secret: it seemed that in just a little while we would understand everything about life. Perhaps we simply did not know how to look from the right angle, but those promises remained only promises . . .

4

In the second year of our marriage we had a daughter, whom we—after some argument—named Mira. Mira is a truncated, Russian-ised version of Rosamund. Strictly speaking, the two names are not related in any language. But Rosamund means ‘rose of the world’, and Mira means ‘world’, and we settled on Mira as a compromise. My wife had seriously wanted to name her Rosamund at first! She had been reading Jane Eyre in those last months of pregnancy. (Unlike me, Kristina did not care for Russian literature.) Rosamund Olegovna—a simply marvellous combination—and in the end I managed to convey to Kristina how comic such a name sounded beside such a patronymic. My wife did have a sense of humour—well, a sense of bourgeois common sense—and in the end she agreed to Mira, with one ‘r’, so that no one would get any unnecessary ideas about our child’s Jewish roots.
The first year or two is always tiring and much the same for almost all parents, but even in her infancy Mira caused no particular trouble. She developed very quickly, spoke early, and began reading at five—without attending any early-development classes, somehow imperceptibly. Mira loved fairy tales and memorised poetry easily, without any visible effort—Chukovsky, Boris Zakhoder, The Tale of Tsar Saltan—all of which I hurried to buy her in modern editions. Her good taste pleased me—delighted me, in fact. She had little interest in cartoons, especially contemporary ones. Peppa Pig, for instance, Mira could not stand, and once, in a child’s language but with an unchildlike seriousness, she explained to me exactly what she disliked about that masterpiece of British thought. I cannot reproduce her words verbatim, but according to her, the whole family of Peppa Pig—Peppa herself, her little brother George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig—in one of the episodes happily smeared themselves in mud, as if that were how things ought to be. What a way to behave! Neither funny nor amusing.
Afterwards I watched the episode she had spoken of on my own, and of course I agreed with her. There was no more Peppa Pig in our house. I do not want to sound like Nikita Mikhalkov, the film director, or any other silver-haired pillar of the fatherland—it does not become me—but the episode really is prophetic. A new generation is ripening—and first it climbs into the mud itself, and afterwards drags its fathers and mothers into the same mud—and this is the spiritual face of contemporary culture.
Masha and the Bear lingered in our house a little longer, but it too soon grew boring. Just as quickly she tired of the various dolls and doll’s houses on which Kristina spared no expense: our daughter would play with a new purchase for two or three days, and then dismiss it.
By contrast, in the way Mira looked at me I always read a sincere curiosity—touching and utterly unexpected, even, I thought, undeserved. She was interested in almost everything I did and almost everything I said, especially when I did not put on a special ‘childish’ tone but spoke to her ‘as to a grown-up’. Having worked out this trait of hers, I almost always did so. For instance, I sometimes brought work home, and when Mira asked me what I was doing, I answered with the same words I would have used to colleagues at Voskhod. I do not know how much she understood, but such answers satisfied her far more than something like ‘Papa is doing his little papers to make a bit of money’. She could not stand simplified explanations, and even grew angry at them. That small anger of hers looked very comic at four years old, but I quickly discovered that I did not want to amuse myself at her expense at all, nor to see a living person as a sort of lapdog. Kristina was less sensitive to such things; for her, ‘Oleg, look how funny she is when she pouts!’ was quite normal.
Strange, but no real warmth ever grew between Mira and Kristina. I could not reproach my wife with anything; she was always friendly with her daughter—well, yes, with a shade of light mockery, of condescension, the sort of thing natural from an adult to a child. But with each year that friendliness began to resemble more and more the politeness of a nurse towards a deeply elderly patient. I had no idea what lay behind it, and never even tried to speak of it with Kristina: such conversations seemed, and still seem, to me profoundly tactless—and what, in essence, could I have reproached her with?
Mira seemed to repay Kristina in the same coin. Now and then a fancy would come to me that once, in her earliest childhood, my daughter had looked her mother over very attentively, from head to foot, and having looked her over, had given her a mark, and the mark had turned out to be merely a pass. It’s hurtful, knowing such a thing about yourself, isn’t it? Mira was delicate enough from earliest childhood and never upset her mother, never let on what I have just written, but still I guessed at the absence of great warmth—and on both sides, though I am only a man, and men are said to be far less observant in such matters than women. Kristina should have noticed it even more. Did my wife notice that I noticed it too? Most likely . . .
I risk supposing that there was a share of jealousy in Kristina’s detachment from Mira—or would ‘hurt’ be the more accurate word? It is comparatively easy, after all, to be a papa for an hour or two a day: collect her from nursery, answer a dozen ‘Whys?’, read a book. Being the mother of a growing child is far harder, and ‘harder’ ought, by rights, to be rewarded with greater attachment, greater love. But it was not rewarded: people love us for something other than what we do for them, for reasons quite different, and this applies to small people too. And there was something else in Mira—I calculate all this, understand it in hindsight, afterwards, not for nothing am I ‘Pozdeyev’, forever late, as someone once interpreted my surname—there was in Mira that very ‘Romashov-ness’, that unusualness which Kristina had vainly tried to cultivate in herself, to find somewhere, and which her daughter took from somewhere without thinking, simply picked up from the floor. It would never have occurred to Mira, for instance, to complain that she lacked imagination: she always had imagination enough, and enough interest too, and intelligence, and attention to what truly mattered, and powers of observation . . .
I have forgotten—or rather, simply have not yet managed—to say that Mira loved to listen to me read, and chiefly poetry, and chiefly—once, after her own question about what else the author of The Tale of Tsar Saltan had written, the mature Pushkin had been revealed to her—serious, ‘grown-up’ poems (so that I had to refresh the library, fetch a few things from the storeroom, buy several new editions). She listened to them with a kind of rapture, her mouth half open, her eyes round: the rhythm of the spoken verse worked on her hypnotically. There was no thoughtlessness of a naive beginner in that listening; on the contrary, there was a certain exactingness in it, a certain, I would say, high selectivity. Daniil Kharms and Nikolai Oleynikov, for example, Mira rejected with indignation, declaring that it was rubbish, not for real, kindergarten stuff, that these ‘grown men’ (she said it just like that) were pulling faces like children. And by contrast, Lermontov, a poet not at all for children, struck her dead, and the more complex the poem, the greater the impression. At Borodino my daughter merely wrinkled her little nose. ‘How often, surrounded by a motley crowd’ she heard out in silence, not uttering a word. But ‘The Demon, soul of all the banished’—oh, that was our hit! Especially the dialogue of the Demon and Tamara, individual phrases from which Mira learned by heart and muttered to herself. Marina Tsvetaeva, I recall, remembered somewhere how in early childhood she had been struck by Tatyana and Onegin, and I, as I write this, can scarcely restrain a smug little smirk: my daughter, in the philosophical and metaphysical sense, turned out to be more discerning than Tsvetaeva . . .
Kristina did not like all this—that is, she liked that I conscientiously performed my duties as a father, but everything needs a sense of measure! And what sort of poems were these, that were not even studied at school? Was I quite sure it was good for the child? ‘And punishment, the torments of hell’— what is this medieval gloom, Oleg?—and Mira is not even baptised! (I do not know how the one connected to the other, or what danger there was in reading to unbaptised children about ‘punishment, the torments of hell’, if for them these were merely fairy tales and harmless frights. On the other hand, for baptised children, reading about it is what God himself commanded.) My wife and I, one might say, never quarrelled, but once we almost did, and, comically, over that same Demon. One of the strangest accusations I heard from my wife that day was that I had never read Lermontov to her, not even during our courtship! The next day we were both amiability and tact itself, and Kristina was the first to make peace: I was wrong, I lost my temper, a ‘poetic whim’ came over me, you’re a wonderful father . . . but all the same, with those ‘punishments, torments of hell’, please be more careful. And one more thing I wanted to warn you about: that passage where ‘he slightly / Touched with burning lips / Her trembling lips’—that should not be read either, it’s not for her age. (I usually skipped that passage anyway, which aroused my daughter’s suspicion and righteous indignation. I think she found it in the book and read it in my absence.)
One day Mira informed me that when she grew up she would certainly write poetry herself.
‘Why not try right now?’ I asked, mostly in jest.
‘The Lord be with you!’ Mira answered me with complete seriousness. ‘I don't know how yet.’
I do not know where she picked up that old-fashioned ‘The Lord be with you!’—at nursery, or from Grandma Lida. At the time the little phrase merely made me smile; now it touches some heavy string. That string rings inside me and cannot settle. ‘The Lord be with you!’ If only I could know for certain He is with me!

 
5

In early 2020, as my readers well remember, the whole world was struggling with the coronavirus epidemic—or rather, with one of its strains, known as COVID-19. In March, when the first case was registered in our region, both my wife and I were transferred to remote work, and we both had the vaccination too (possibly among the first). There was no question of a vaccination for Mira: children were not being vaccinated, since it was thought that they caught it comparatively lightly.
Despite all the measures, in May we both went down with the wretched thing anyway. We seem to have fallen ill at the same time—perhaps Kristina a day or two earlier. (Does it matter now?)
Even if my wife was indeed the first, she carried the virus lightly—‘on her feet’, as they say—and assured me it was a trifle, a seasonal spring flu. She believed it herself, and I of course believed her.
Nevertheless, feeling the first symptoms of illness, I honestly went to the doctor, to the clinic where I had once worked as a legal adviser. I went to the private clinic simply so as not to put extra strain on state doctors: the internet was bringing terrible news every day about their working themselves to the bone in those hard months. A friendly young doctor listened to me attentively and, among other things, ordered a coronavirus test for form’s sake—a thing I did not suspect in myself, and which she did not suspect in me either (patients with that diagnosis were not being admitted, incidentally, as a notice at the entrance warned). Against all expectations, the test came back positive. No sooner had I forwarded the test results to the clinic than I discovered I had been entered on an unofficial blacklist: I could no longer get through to reception. And that is how they treated their own former employee!
(I note in parentheses that now, in hindsight, with a cold head, I cannot throw a stone at the management of the medical centre: they had neither the experience, nor the instructions, nor, I imagine, even the legal possibility of working with this new and unstudied disease. My head understands all that—but that silent throwing of me overboard still seems to me a thoroughly indecent, boorish act, and God be with its legal dubiousness. Some boors behave impeccably from the point of view of the law, and something tells me that in recent years the number of such boors in my fatherland has only been growing. And we still consider ourselves a God-saved nation and the last bastion of traditionalism . . .)
There was no time left for indignation, still less for legal action: I went down with a temperature approaching thirty-nine and spent about a week almost suffocating from coughing. The medicines were brought by a doctor (a male nurse, by the look of him) from the municipal clinic which Kristina had called by telephone.
Since 2020, the coronavirus has, as biologists say, managed to mutate, so that now it does its human host no great harm and is borne like a moderate flu. But it was not so then, and all the nasty symptoms of the early variety of that accursed virus—the continuous dry cough, the rapid exhaustion, the shortage of air, even the dark thoughts in the spirit of well, that’s it, I’ve had my life—I experienced all of it in full. There is my mitigating circumstance, if I am to be judged for not having thought properly about Mira’s safety and not having taken any practical steps. Yes, the idea of her moving for a while to ‘Grandma Lida’ (my mother-in-law, Lydia Vasilyevna) was discussed, but somehow both of us, Kristina and I, arrived at the thought that it would be unfair to risk an elderly person’s health, that children, after all, bear any illness more lightly, that it would all blow over . . .
When our daughter fell ill, Kristina treated her with the same medicines as she had treated me, since she could get to the pharmacy and we had all the prescriptions to hand. Mira bore the illness stoically, but the symptoms grew more frightening by the day. One night my wife hardly slept, and in the morning she came to my room to say: she thought it was time to call the emergency services. I sat up in bed, and for a while we sat in silence, not daring to take the final decision.
I offered some argument against it: in the covid wards, I said, the doctors were run off their feet, and the patients were sitting on one another’s heads. It was a weak argument and it sounded weak.
‘At least they have ventilators, for a last resort,’ Kristina objected, exhausted. ‘And what do we have?’
I nodded, my eyes closed. Kristina went out to the kitchen and from the kitchen called the ambulance.
This happened on the fifteenth of May, at the end of the working week. On the fourth of June, a Thursday, my daughter died of double pneumonia. She had not yet turned seven.

6

Afterwards I learned that of all the children who fell ill with the new virus in Russia, only five thousandths of a percent died: a few hundred in the whole country. Alas, that knowledge brought no comfort . . . In any case, Mira did not die of the virus itself. Her pneumonia was, most likely, bacterial. It developed in a weakened organism alongside the virus, in parallel to it. Had the diagnosis been more precise, had antibiotics been prescribed in time, our daughter might have been saved—who knows?
Or, on the contrary, she could not have been saved in any case. What use is guessing now? That year swept through many families; more than one has a similar story—which is why the book I am now writing does not invite a medical debate or call for outrage at the actions of doctors.
Immediately after Mira’s death, my wife and I drew apart. First, we were afraid of troubling one another unnecessarily, and we treated each other as carefully as one treats a gravely ill person. Second, we did not much want to talk. Finally, each of us, presumably, blamed himself—and perhaps also, secretly, blamed the other.
I remember that at some point I threw myself into reading everything about that loathsome virus, in order to establish whether it really was of artificial origin, whether it was true that it was a biological weapon hammered together in American biolabs. My head was full of figures, quotations from articles, images of protein spikes, footage of investigations or perhaps pseudo-investigations. The opinion I arrived at should probably be left outside the covers of this book: first, I am not a biologist and cannot judge with any certainty what I read; second, my whole state at the time was too much like a fever dream for me to hope for precision or impartiality in my conclusions. And, most importantly, did it even matter in our case? Even then, with the edge of my mind, I understood the pointlessness of my searching—and still I could not stop.
Kristina went another way, plunged into a different kind of abnormality. It seemed to her that we had committed a certain ‘sin’: first, we had given our daughter a non-Christian name; second, we had not baptised her in infancy; third, we had developed her wrongly, given her mind premature food, and the poor thing had overstrained herself. It all sounded strange, given that my wife had not previously been an active Orthodox churchgoer (but then, had I been a biology enthusiast before?).
Kristina hunted out short videos online in which elderly priests uttered profound truths, and she began her own pilgrimage around the churches of our city, with an obligatory confession in each, as though she were looking for some magical spiritual pill against all sorrows. Alas, no such pills have yet been invented that could raise the dead . . . Though I don’t want to be ironic: we were both, at the time, under the sway of grief, doing things not characteristic of us in ordinary life, and hardly very clever.
Our ‘madnesses’ were of too different a character, and so one day we quarrelled in earnest, in the most prosaic and vulgar way: loudly, with mutual accusations—something we had never, it seems, done in all our years of marriage. I, Kristina shouted at me, could have waited at least a year or two with my godless Demon! Had the title itself not suggested to me that this was not children’s reading, no? You, I shouted back at her, could have called your mother to take the child, or could have moved in with her yourself for a while, instead of spinning us a yarn about a spring flu! (‘Spinning us a yarn’—what vulgarity! Where did you pick up that sort of coarseness, my dear Oleg Valeryevich?)
The next day we calmed down and apologised to one another—and after that reconciliation we treated each other with still greater delicacy, and as a consequence talked still less.
We were like two business partners who had started a joint project—and the project had gone bust, and now each of the two was embarrassed to be the first to say that it was probably time to stop, to divide the assets untouched by the collapse, and to part on good terms . . .
My readers—if, I repeat, this book has any—will probably say to me: the pragmatic, bourgeois spirit of your union speaks eloquently to the fact that there was no true love on either side. After all, they will go on, most marriages survive the death of a child, and even grow stronger. Very valuable observations, no doubt, and also very easy to make from the sidelines. Nonsense, complete nonsense!—including the idea that there was no love. There is love that is long-suffering, courageous, heroic, and there is love that is fragile, hothouse love, and ours simply turned out to be of the latter sort. What happened to us was, though not excessively heavy, still an out-of-the-ordinary trial for two perfectly ordinary people. These two ordinary people, who thought themselves grown-up, these two essentially children, did not cope with what fell upon them, and behaved exactly like children—and in the face of something I call the Invisible Life, we are almost all children. Yes, one could give the two children a stern talking-to: why did they not turn out to be more grown-up? But calm down, pedagogues: the children have been punished enough already.
It is noteworthy that the thought of divorce never even occurred to me—until the moment my wife came into my room (we slept in separate rooms after our daughter’s death) and suggested we talk.
It was a very tiring, exhausting, slippery conversation, with averted eyes, omissions, sentences begun and not finished. Kristina hinted that a certain other man had, so to speak, appeared on her horizon. To this day I do not know whether she was telling the truth or simply trying to make the parting easier. All the same, I offered several arguments in favour of preserving the marriage. I even proposed, I recall, that we be married in church, since the whole trouble was that a ‘spiritual malaise’ or ‘absence of blessing’ hung over our union. Hearing this, Kristina gave a sort of chilly shrug—and sat in silence, and then suddenly dissolved into tears, and through those tears I made out how awful she felt, because I did everything as it should be done, as was right, simply like an exemplary husband, and she still didn’t want to . . . Well, and how can one argue with ‘she doesn’t want to’? You cannot force someone to love you. Though, I recall, Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin argued precisely with his wife’s ‘she doesn’t want to’, resisting it as best he could. But then, he was a government official of ministerial rank, a man who was a priori outstanding, and I am merely a general-practice lawyer in the Russian provinces: my will and my mind were not enough to make me anything more. And even he got nowhere in the end. What chance did I have?
Our two-room flat had been bought on a mortgage whose term expired in March 2021 (it ended so quickly because of the large down payment). We waited for the final payment, sold the flat, and divided the sum in half. I bought a one-room flat almost immediately, taking out a comparatively small loan, which I have since repaid. Kristina, it seems, also bought herself a flat or a room, which she mentioned once. She did not go into details, and I considered it tactless to ask.
We managed without a court, divorcing through the registry office—amicably, as they say. Kristina made no claim on my car. And quite right: there was hardly much to be had from the sale of an eight-year-old Daewoo Nexia.

7

Soon after the divorce, a dull depression descended on me. I had to work, to pay off the loan, and simply not to starve—and that, badly or well, I managed. I wanted nothing else: not to exercise, not to take up new hobbies, not to read, not to seek new acquaintances. For a while I mindlessly watched short videos online, scrolled the news feed. But even that suddenly became unwanted. The bad habit dried itself up, withered and dropped off, like a pruned branch of wild vine on a brick wall.
What did I do outside working hours? On some days I would drive out of town somewhere, find a deserted spot, sit on a folding fishing stool staring ahead of me, drink coffee from a thermos. Sometimes I did the same thing but on the suburban train: the crowd of people created a kind of illusion of life. I had chance conversations with fellow passengers whom (and which) I forgot almost the moment I stepped out of the carriage. Sometimes I had not the strength even for that: I lay on the bed, looked at the ceiling, followed the scraps of thought: they flowed without connecting to one another.
I was afraid to tell myself that I was, apparently, unwell, and I irritably drove off all such reflections: in the end, I was doing my duties—what more do you want from me? But the prospect of spending the rest of my life as a humanoid robot suddenly horrified me so much that I—nearly two years after the divorce!—found a list of psychologists in private practice and made an appointment with the nearest one. Her reviews were good, too.
(Choosing a doctor by patient reviews—isn’t that a foolish business? Worse still is choosing a teacher by student reviews. Someone ought to bolt onto schoolteachers a ‘rating’ like the one Yandex Taxi passengers give their drivers, and then those who let a class run riot or tell dirty jokes in lessons will get a solid five stars out of five. That too is one of those observations made in hindsight: with my surname, I am especially firm on it.)
The story of my ‘therapy’ is a chapter in itself, out of which a writer like Zoshchenko could have made a humorous tale. But I have no talent for humour, so I shall tell this story as best I can.
Elvira Vitalyevna, a lady roughly my own age, took an energetic interest in me from the first minutes. According to her, I was a pleasant exception in her practice, since single men almost never visit a psychologist. (Really?) Either women come, or husbands whom their wives have led by the hand, or specimens so battered by life that one does not even want to work with them. I, evidently, did not yet fall into the category of the badly battered: well, thank God for that.
The first session was devoted to projective techniques (I remember, in particular, coloured cards, from which I had to keep choosing and choosing, gradually reducing their number), to a long conversation, and, so to speak, to establishing a general diagnosis. After that I was made to keep a ‘diary of automatic thoughts’, was taken through ‘progressive relaxation techniques’, was set the task of performing ‘behavioural experiments’ between sessions (such as speaking to the first five attractive girls I came across) and so on. I will not describe step by step everything on which Elvira Vitalyevna tirelessly practised upon me (as upon a vaulting horse): there would hardly be much point in it. The problem was that I somehow almost immediately felt: my therapist was applying to me unsuitable, lightweight means—or perhaps the means were suitable in themselves but were used with insufficient seriousness, thoroughness, persistence. In general, what immensely tired me, and by the end even began to irritate me, was the eternal ‘positive attitude’ of my psychologist, the smile that never left her face—the smile either of a polite service provider, or of an adult looking down indulgently at a stupid child scrabbling in the sand. Somewhere I once read that people crushed by grief do not seek consolation in those around them. What matters to them is the recognition of their grief as an important part of their life. Perpetual Komsomol cheerfulness leaves very little room for such recognition.
Let me say in parentheses that I would not want to appear in the reader’s eyes as a spiteful pensioner who knows everything better than anyone and is always dissatisfied with everything. Perhaps the psychologist did everything competently and correctly; perhaps it was I, an ungrateful and stubborn patient, who was to blame for everything.
Let me give as an example one of my typical dialogues with Elvira Vitalyevna—within the framework of an exercise which, I think, was called ‘The Downward Arrow’.
‘Let’s talk once more about what’s troubling you!’
‘Nothing.’
‘It cannot be that nothing troubles you: you came to me for some reason, after all?’
‘True, I came: I became frightened that I would spend the rest of my life behaving like a robot who lies on his back at weekends staring at the ceiling.’
‘Let’s try the “What if?” technique. What will happen if you spend the rest of your life lying on your back at weekends staring at the ceiling?’
‘Nothing will happen. I’ll work until retirement, retire, and go on lying there all day, and then I’ll die, and the state will bury me at its own expense.’
‘And what then? Why is that frightening?’
‘Nothing, or rather, I don’t know what then. Do you?’
‘No, I don’t know either . . . So why is it frightening?’
‘I myself don’t know why, and anyway it isn’t even frightening.’
‘What is frightening, then?’
‘Frightening, for instance, is that today I’ll leave another two thousand for the visit, and again with no result.’
‘Right, and why is that frightening? Are you afraid of losing money?’
‘Within reasonable limits—yes, like everyone.’
‘What will happen if you lose all your money?’
'I'll earn new money, and until payday I'll cadge off colleagues.' (As someone born in the Soviet Union, I deliberately said ‘cadge’ rather than ‘borrow’, even rather showing off my ‘antiquity’.)
‘If you’re dismissed?’
‘I’ll look for another job.’
‘If you don’t find one?’
‘My money will probably run out, and I’ll die of hunger.’
‘Perhaps this is a cognitive distortion, a manifestation of an irrational fear?’
‘Perhaps—you’d know better. I don't even know such words.’ (Here I was, rather, playing the fool.)
‘When did you first come to this thought? Try to remember: when did you become frightened of dying of hunger?’
‘Just now—you led me to it. I wasn’t even frightened, I simply understood that that is how it would be.’
‘So dying of hunger is not frightening?’
‘I think it's a little unpleasant, but not much more unpleasant than what is already happening to me. No, it’s not frightening. It's meaningless.’
‘And what should you do now that you know for certain that you could die of hunger?’
‘I always knew it. If only someone would tell me what to do!’
‘No one but you can tell you that.’
‘I know.’
‘Is that frightening?’
‘No, it’s not frightening. I just don’t want to.’
‘What exactly don’t you want to do?’
‘Answer the question “What should I do?”. And otherwise—nothing.’
‘What will happen if you, as you imagine, die of hunger? Are you afraid of letting down your loved ones? Of dragging them into debt with your funeral?’
‘No, I’m not afraid: I told you, the state will bury me at its own expense. I would like to know what happens, and what in general happens after death! Perhaps you know?’
And so on, round and round again. Let the readers for whom psychology is a profession decide for themselves who was to blame here: whether the questions missed their target, or whether it was I who swineishly sabotaged them, unwilling to engage with the good doctor and to display Genesungswille.
My therapy lasted a little over two months—until the moment I decided not to go to the next session. Those ‘sessions’ probably did bring me a certain benefit: at least I acquired a kind of cheerful fearlessness, something like ancient Greek stoicism—far, though, from any real will to live, and still further from any meaning in living. More than this stoicism, sessions with a psychologist probably could not have given me. There was another reason to stop them too: Elvira Vitalyevna, it seems, had taken a fancy to me. I wouldn’t stake my life on it, but at least her little laughs, the intonations of her voice, her gaze—all of it began to resemble Kristina at some early stage of our acquaintance. It was time to stop. To begin therapy only in order to end it with an affair with one’s own therapist is a strange adventure and a dubious achievement.

8

In Elvira Vitalyevna’s consulting room there was a coffee table on which, in disorder, lay a couple of magazines like Psychologies, advertising brochures, her own business cards and other people’s. I do not know what function that little table performed: perhaps purely decorative; perhaps, by its ‘charming carelessness’, it put the visitor in a relaxed frame of mind and helped him to unwind; perhaps the doctor was keenly observing which particular object the bored visitor would pick up, and drawing her conclusions on that basis . . .
One of the business cards looked brighter than the others—indecently bright, in fact—and during the second-to-last session I stole it, I confess. In my defence I will say that I did so not quite of my own free will, but within the framework of my ‘homework’: I had to perform some stupidity that would never even have entered my head in ordinary life. At the next session I was intending to repent and return that eye-searing card, but somehow it never came to that.
The card proudly announced:

Dahlia Vyacheslavovna POLEZHAYEVA
Cosmo-energeticist of the highest initiations, contactee

Below were a telephone number and an email address.
‘Dahlia’—think of that! I had not known before that such names existed . . .
The word ‘cosmo-energeticist’ was, by all appearances, a modern synonym for a witch, and ‘Dahlia’ was probably a reworked ‘Lidia’— or perhaps a name she had chosen for herself. In a former life it would never have occurred to me in my worst nightmare to visit a sorceress. But it seems Elvira Vitalyevna had taught me a thing or two after all: I no longer feared not only to invent all sorts of ‘behavioural experiments’ but also to carry them out, guided by the conviction that things could not get worse. How, indeed, could they get worse! I was, as it were, at the very lowest point of my life, arrived at the station called Dno—The Bottom—like our Gracious Sovereign in March 1917, and from that point all paths ought to lead upward, or so it seemed to me.
Dahlia Vyacheslavovna, a lady with a slightly bloated face, black bulging eyes and a regal bearing, received me in the half-darkness of her large flat in a ‘Stalin-era’ building with high ceilings. The drawing room was lit by a single lamp with a green shade. On the walls, portraits of people unknown to me were faintly discernible. On a round table with a lacy cloth were piled up a large crystal ball, a plaster pyramid, a Tibetan singing bowl with its mallet, a mirror, a spiral pendulum hanging from a curved stand, a glass cylinder filled with water, a Tarot deck, a candle, a phial of medical spirit, and the other implements of the magical trade. Surely, I thought, she does not need all these objects at every session, without exception? The lady cosmo-energeticist was wrapped in a shawl with glass beads. The little beads glimmered mysteriously and almost ominously in the light of the green lamp.

In the cemetery, all by night, the Master
Has prepared his marble tabletop,
He awaits his Mighty Lairds for supper.
Lo, his bloody cahors stand there ready;
Dimly shines one solitary candle . . .
 
—came into my head the irreverent, atheistic little verses by the children’s writer Eduard Uspensky—the man who gave Russia Cheburashka, and who, the same year, was publishing ghost stories for schoolchildren in the magazine Pioneer—read in far-off childhood in that same magazine, and I was irresistibly seized by a wish to laugh. I suppressed the wish, of course: I am a well-brought-up person, after all.
‘Place your hand on the mirror and hold it there for ten seconds!’ the magician commanded me. ‘My God, why the left?! Who taught you to put your left hand there—are you a woman, or a eunuch?! The right!’
I obediently did as she demanded. The cosmo-energeticist raised the mirror to the lamp and studied the imprint for some time, fastidiously. She was evidently dissatisfied with what she studied, but shared no conclusions with me. Instead, I was handed a chicken’s egg and told to hold it between my palms and concentrate on it, ‘to project my mind onto it’. I am not sure I understood exactly what was required of me, but I honestly tried to fulfil that request too. Dahlia Vyacheslavovna took the egg from me, cracked it against the edge of the glass cylinder—which turned out to be simply a large mug—and for a good minute examined the floating contents against the light.
‘What do you think these clots mean?’ she asked me in an unkinship-like voice.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea!’ I admitted.
‘Your scepticism!’ I was told with displeasure. ‘Your unbelief! You wander across the plain of life like the Ninth card of the Major Arcana, but the difference is that you have no lantern in your hand, and your eyes are—blindfolded! Close your eyes!’
After I closed my eyes, they were indeed blindfolded. For a while I sat in darkness and silence, completely disoriented. My nose itched, and a disagreeable prickling began in my shoulders.
‘What do you feel, WHAT DO YOU FEEL?!’ Dahlia suddenly shrieked somewhere right by my ear. ‘Though—be silent! I see that you feel NOTHING! You are deaf to the subtle energies! Take off the blindfold!’
‘So, this is how it is!’ She had already moved back to her place and, without looking me in the eye, began drawing triangles on the mirror with her finger. ‘In one of your past lives, or perhaps even in this one—I did not see clearly—you insulted a High Female Being. Possibly one of the daughters of the Great Mother. That is the cause of all your troubles. At the centre of your existence there is a breach, a grey hole. Note that I did not say “black”! And into that grey hole fly your vital forces, your youth, your talent (“You flatter me,” I wanted to joke)—everything, everything!’
‘What should I do, then?’ I asked timidly.
‘Establish contact and beg forgiveness!’ Dahlia announced to me. ‘If need be—on your knees: crawl on your knees seven versts until you raise bloody blisters! SEVEN versts, and BLOODY blisters!’
‘Yes, I think so too,’ I agreed. 'Only recently I was recalling a poem about bloody cahors …’
‘No cahors!’ My pitiful attempt at humour was pinned down in a tone brooking no objection. ‘Alcohol is poison! And no flirting with the rot of the official church—I warn you in earnest! Three’. The transition was so sudden that I did not at once realise she was speaking of the fee for the consultation. ‘What is this?’ Deliya Vyacheslavovna grimaced at the sight of the three green banknotes. ‘No, I do not take money in my hands, excuse me! And I do not advise you to either. Put it in the donation box in the corridor.’
Out in the street, I laughed after all. I had not laughed like that in a long time!

9

Laughter aside, might there not have been a grain of truth in the clairvoyant’s words? Yes, performing her sacred rite, she was of course playing a role—but playing it without the slightest concern for what impression she made. That is probably how people behave either when they are thoroughly cynical, or when they are completely, clinically convinced that they are performing a high service and uttering nothing less than holy truth. Without a tiny seed of authenticity it is very hard to do this at all. Perhaps Kristina had not been so very wrong either? Forget the ‘daughter of the Great Mother’ and the rest of the mythological nonsense in the spirit of Robert Graves. But if I really am so bad that—even God punished me? What sort of God is it, then, who executes children for the sins of adults? On the other hand, Mira’s death could have been a punishment only for me, and for her, a relief.
Dahlia categorically forbade me to flirt with ‘the rot of the official church’, but prohibitions coming from someone I did not choose as my spiritual father or spiritual mother only irritate me. I think I am not alone in this: almost any adult would say the same of himself.
The day after my visit to the ‘seer’ was a Sunday. Parish churches in our city usually do not have websites, and I am a punctual person and do not like to arrive late. Large cathedrals and monasteries, however, do have websites. That is how it came about that on an April Sunday morning I found myself at the liturgy in the Vvedensky Convent.
Besides me, there were a dozen laypeople present, no more. The young women of the choir sang beautifully; the elderly priest performed the service with all strictness and care.
For a person who appears in church, as I do, three or four times in his life—for a christening, a wedding, and the funeral of a dear departed—standing through a liturgy is hard when you are unaccustomed to it, but that was not what troubled me. The service proceeded on its way; it gradually took hold of me, it rushed somewhere inward, past the rational mind, speaking in its ancient language . . . A language almost entirely incomprehensible to the reason, a language I had never troubled to master out of laziness, or rather, out of the arrogance of the modern educated sceptic. The faith of the Church revealed itself as a path—and that path passed far away from me. One should have set out on it much earlier, at about seven, or, well, at fourteen. Perhaps even at twenty it would not have been too late . . . A hypothetical Margarita Pavlovna, the chief accountant at some enterprise, the grandmother of several grandchildren and the possessor of a permanent wave, gazes at Swan Lake on the stage of a theatre with the same feeling with which I attended the liturgy. ‘We are strangers at this feast of life’ (that rather vulgar phrase of the Great Combinator I almost uttered aloud). And now the people have already formed a queue for communion—and where am I to go? Outside, nowhere else.
Outside, I sat down on a bench beside the flower beds in the shade of tall firs. My God, am I even Orthodox? Am I a Christian at all?
‘Young man! Yes, yes, you!’
‘Are you speaking to me?’ I was taken aback: no one had called me ‘young man’ for quite a while.
‘To you, who else!’ The nun of indeterminate age was already standing before me—short, plump, brisk, like a little black bun on legs. ‘Are you offended that I called you a young man? Well, forgive me, and God will forgive you. I have been watching you. You did not come up to communion, somehow…’
‘I have not been to confession.’
‘Well, never mind, even if you haven’t been to confession,’ she objected lightly. ‘You . . . have some grief? A widower?’
‘Divorced.’
‘Well, and that is also grief. And is there something else?’
‘There is.’ I did not like myself for my terseness, but my former life had not taught me to hold conversations with church people.
‘Would you . . . Do not refuse, please, to walk around the church with me! I don’t stand very well on my legs at times, and if anything happens, you can catch me.’
The sister said that she did not stand well on her legs ‘just like that’, as an innocent deception, but I got up from my seat, and we walked side by side around the building of the Vvedensky Cathedral: an absurd little pair. The nun was silent. Then she spoke, to no one in particular:
‘Sometimes, you know . . . people search and search, and never find . . . Sometimes they even come into the church, and do not find it there either . . .’
‘It happens . . .’ I responded vaguely, as though it were not about me.
‘Yes, it happens . . . And I thought: shall I give you the address and phone number of a certain person? An acquaintance of mine—don’t be frightened.’
‘What for?’ I did not understand.
‘To have a talk,’ she explained artlessly. ‘People go to her, you know…’
‘Erm—all right,’ I agreed. And indeed, what else was left to me? Besides, I, a man with a higher education, had of my own free will visited the ‘Mistress of the Cemetery’ with her ‘seven versts of bloody blisters’, and even paid three thousand roubles for the visit, the fool. What worse thing could happen to me than that?
‘Here, please.’ The nun was already holding out to me a cardboard card no larger than a bank card, on which someone’s neat hand had written, in a close, compact script, a surname, first name and patronymic, a telephone number and an email address. I took the card with a smirk and put it in my wallet. Then thanked her with restraint:
‘Thank you. Who is she, anyway?’
‘She sews soft toys,’ the nun explained. ‘She lives alone, all year round at her dacha. As for the male sex—not at all, she lives as we do, keeps herself pure. She is—well, something like Blessed Xenia. Have you heard of her?’
‘I have,’ I confirmed, though I knew nothing about Xenia of Petersburg except the name. ‘So your acquaintance—is she mentally unwell?’
‘Fedorushka, unwell?’ The nun was amazed. ‘God be with you! You . . . give her a ring! And don’t think I am forcing you!’
I muttered words of thanks: that I was not sure I would ring, but thank you again in any case; in our time people so rarely help one another selflessly, and I very much value such gestures . . . The nun, smiling, waved off all these words as rubbish. Her smile, though, was a kind one.
 
10

Nearly two months passed, however, before I made up my mind to ring Darya Arkadyevna Smirnova. (And not ‘Fedora’ at all—evidently the monastics translate simple Russian names into the church manner, but I would most likely not have rung a person named Fedora. ‘But the trough replied in sorrow: / “I am angry with Fedora!” / And the poker said: “No, sir! / I’m no servant in her store!”—that was all that surfaced in my head at the sound of that chthonically dreary name. I suspect not only in mine.) The whole situation, in which one stranger recommended another to me—and recommended her as a ‘holy fool’: is that a profession?—seemed to me extremely strained, almost impossible. If I had read about such a thing in a book, I would have thought that the author, like my ex-wife, had not enough imagination. No, really, monastics are people not of this world! And their friends are too, and what strange friends they must have . . . It is wonderful that they are like that—someone must pray for us sinners—but to set out on that slippery path oneself?
Besides, I did not feel altogether bad. The visit to Dahlia, and especially my laughter when I finally left her, had cheered me, had let me feel a taste for life for a short while. Alas, only for a short while: one cannot console oneself forever with thoughts of another’s foolishness. Dahlia might reason as much as she liked in the depths of her apartments about human sins and the ways of healing them, might roll her eyes as much as she liked, shriek into the ears of new victims and beat her Tibetan drums—but none of that cancelled my own knowledge that I was not living quite rightly. Therefore . . . should I really ring? Surely a woman with such a ‘meek’ surname would not eat me? Surnames influence our character far more than we ourselves notice—I say this authoritatively, as a lawyer.
And what would I say to Darya Arkadyevna? ‘Hello, I was given your phone number at the convent, they suggested I talk with you.’ ‘But I’m not a psychotherapist,’ Mrs Smirnova would answer me. ‘I sew soft toys. Do you need a toy, then?’
It would be untrue to say that I did nothing but think about all this. Thoughts of the cardboard card the nun had given me surfaced as a curiosity, as ‘Remember that time?—what a laugh!’, as ‘Just think, are there really such people?’, and I diligently drove them away. That is why it took me half of April and almost all of May to understand: but I really do need a toy! I could try to bring Kara back to life.

11

Kara requires a separate account.
My father had a bitch of the collie breed, black with tan markings, named Kara. (‘Kara’ means ‘black’ in the Turkic languages.) I say ‘my father had’ because it was he who acquired her: my mother regarded Kara without much friendliness. My father was not a devoted dog person, and in fact took the puppy ‘to mind’ for a while, for the sake of an acquaintance who swore to my father that he needed a dog of exactly this breed and exactly this colouring. Evidently the oaths were worth little, and so Kara lived with us until her death.
I remember Kara as a creature not only of excellent character but very intelligent, restrained, polite. Ridiculous to say, but I seem to have learned self-restraint and tact from her: Kara constantly gave me a visible example of the fact that sometimes it is better to be silent than to whine, to bark, or to bare one’s teeth. Kara noticed much and understood much. She knew how to comfort, and she knew—a great quality that many people lack!—how not to be importunate. And there was in her a gracefulness, a dignity of movement, such as perhaps all dogs of that breed have, and Russian borzois too: at times she seemed to me an enchanted princess.
On the subject of her gracefulness I will say something that the modern generation, spoiled by many vulgar subcultures, will in all likelihood misunderstand, will hear in the lowest physiological register, which I of course did not intend, and so I write with some doubt and reluctance. In my youth I never felt any shyness before girls, and they did not seem to me creatures from another planet. They say this is characteristic of boys who have sisters. A human sister, of course, I did not have, but Kara served me as something like an elder sister. As a child I scarcely realised this—but she, I think, understood. My father would tell me with a laugh how the ‘elder sister’ pulled me off some rickety ladder that in my youth and folly I had tried to climb. Funny, but I do not remember that episode at all. Perhaps my father simply made a family legend out of a domestic trifle, embellishing it, as often happens. Or perhaps my memory is failing me, and more and more with each year.
There—an unexpected memory has surfaced! Once, in my early youth, at a party, I said to one of my free-and-easy acquaintances, ‘You behave a hundred times more vulgarly than the dog I had as a child.’ I received a slap in the face for that, but the friendly laughter confirmed that I was not alone in thinking so. I had quite forgotten that story until I wrote about my bad memory—so I might also have forgotten about the ladder.
Kara died, one might say, in a manner typical for collies: she had to be put to sleep, because her hind legs gave out. This often happens to herding dogs kept in city flats. (It seems that in the last ten or twenty years Scottish sheepdogs have gone out of fashion among city dog-owners. Fortunately, really?) Kara was put to sleep when I was at school, and I was told that old age was the cause of death, but I knew it was not so: the day before, I had overheard my parents’ conversation.
(Here is a thought I do not want to think, but which importunately thinks itself, irrational, absurd, terrible. Perhaps if Kara had not been put to sleep, my daughter would still be alive?
And here is another thought, not so dreadful, but no less stupid. Perhaps I named Mira by the sound of Kara?)
Mira had many toys—I have already told how Kristina was not sparing with toys—but one of her favourites was a small plastic fox, of Soviet manufacture, so worn that almost all the paint had come off it.
‘It looks like Kara,’ I remarked once, coming into the nursery.
Mira did not let this pass, and made me tell her about the dog I had had in childhood, in the smallest detail. My story had unexpected consequences: my daughter asked me to buy three kinds of paint—black, orange, and white. This seemed to me amusing and touching—of course, I fulfilled her request. Incidentally, I bought the paint not in an art supplies shop but in a building supplies shop: the so-called colourants, that is, pigments used for tinting white paint base for walls, ceilings, and facades. Kristina, learning of this, laughed for a long time. She did not accompany it with any offensive comment—and that is good: at that time she was still touched that I spent, perhaps, more time with our daughter than ordinary fathers do.
One evening we painted the fox in three colours: I laid on the pencil outlines, and Mira wielded the brush. She handled the brush far more deftly than children of her age. The result, to my undemanding eye, was very like.
After my daughter’s death I—a foolish, unreasoning act—took this new Kara for myself and fixed it in the car on the front fascia, a little above the place where people usually stick icons. Later Kara moved to the desk in my study, becoming an object of restrained interest and good-natured irony among visitors and colleagues. Once, alas, I could not find her, though I searched every corner of the study. Sergei, one of my colleagues, even offered to find and buy me another fox like it, seeing that the face had quite fallen off me. Thanks to him, of course, but it was impossible to buy another like it!
Or was it, after all, possible? I understood that I had a legitimate, reasonable, unshameful pretext for ringing the woman who sewed soft toys.
The voice on the line sounded friendly and offered to let me send a photograph, a picture, a sketch of the figure I would like to commission.
‘There is no photograph, the toy is lost,’ I explained. And added, astonished at my own boldness: ‘As for a sketch, I draw badly, but . . . would it be very impertinent to invite myself to your office, to explain the details?’
‘I have no office, I work from home,’ the voice on the telephone replied. ‘Come, let us say, tomorrow, about four.’
‘I’m afraid they won’t let me leave work that early,’ I said apologetically. ‘Half past five?’
‘Yes, that works! That time is no worse at all.’
I was given the address.

12

The craftswoman lived on her own dacha plot, as the nun whose name I never asked had warned me. Her little house, though small, was not a prefabricated temporary structure but, one might say, a substantial building: a wooden frame of thick logs, painted for extra protection with a coloured wood stain, which gave it a festive, almost toy-like, ‘doll’s-house’ appearance—only the carved window frames were missing (‘—and the chicken legs,’ prompted the sarcastic observer inside me, with whom each of us contends until old age. The witch Baba Yaga’s hut, in the tales, stands on just such legs.) Above the roof ridge rose a brick chimney, and from the chimney came a wisp of smoke, just like in a Soviet children’s book about some industrious little mouse. The mouse did everything properly; be like the mouse.
The mistress of the house met me at the gate, to which she had walked together with me. Darya Arkadyevna was wearing a long, floor-length dark-orange skirt with several rectangular decorative patches (I think this style is called ‘patchwork’), a light-grey blouse with rolled-up sleeves, and a working apron. ‘A woman like any other woman,’ I noted to myself. ‘Friendly, likeable, but her features are perhaps a little large. There is something peasant-like about her. Kristina is far prettier . . .’ Yes, we men are biological creatures, and we unconsciously assess the appearance of every new female acquaintance, even if we have no designs on her whatsoever. The other sex does the same, of course.
Darya greeted me with the merest shake of my hand—a very light, almost imperceptible handshake—and invited me into her ‘doll’s house’.
‘How old is she—twenty-eight? Thirty? Thirty-two?’ I wondered to myself as we walked to the house. ‘That thick girlish braid looks somewhat absurd on a woman, though of course there is no accounting for taste, and it is not my business.’ In general, though, I had calmed down completely and even grown bored: no, she did not resemble Blessed Xenia in the least! The nameless nun had evidently been mistaken, out of the ordinary Orthodox kindness and the inclination to attribute non-existent qualities to people, which sometimes develops in ascetics and in people not of this world generally.
Inside the house there were two small rooms: the first was a cosy kitchen, in which a stove was lit—or rather, something between a Swedish stove and a fireplace. The mistress led me on, into the workroom, where I found two whole tables, one for sewing, the other for work in wood and clay. Above each table, on wall shelves, were materials and tools. Where does she sleep, I wondered. Ah, on this couch, now covered with a plaid. Well, what laconic lodgings! My city flat is probably bigger. Incidentally, where is the ladder to the attic? I looked for the ladder with my eyes, but did not find it.
‘So you work in wood too?’ I asked, to begin a conversation.
‘Wood is more for fun,’ the craftswoman explained readily, ‘but as a ceramicist I’m a laughing stock... Sit down here! You see, I have no kiln for firing. Sometimes I gather up all these little things and take them to an acquaintance who has such a kiln. But I must get out of the habit: it is bad to be importunate . . . Also—plaster, artificial stone, epoxy resin,’ with quick movements she showed me figures cast from various materials. ‘I want to try working with a 3D pen—have you heard of such a thing?—but I think it will come out as mere trifling. So what is your toy?’
She had an interesting timbre of voice and a barely perceptible little accent, slightly singsong, not Moscow, not southern, but not Vologda either. Or was it Vologda after all, northern?
I sighed and began to tell her about Kara what I have already told the reader in the previous chapter.
Nothing in Darya’s face changed when she heard of my daughter’s death, and she betrayed no sympathy by any sign—only the pencil with which she was making a quick sketch on a sheet of paper trembled, while she murmured:
‘So, so, and so . . . Does it look like her?’
‘It does!’ I admitted. 'You seem to have taken her out of my head.’
‘Well, there you go, “out of my head”! 'All dogs of one breed look alike . . . If, let us say, we take felt, it will be…’ Having performed several operations on the calculator, the craftswoman showed me the cost. ‘Or do you not need a soft toy—a figurine, then?’
‘I don’t exactly know . . .’ (‘A fine client!’ I reproached myself. ‘Of the two of you, the holy fool here is you alone.’)
‘Well, we’ll think about it some more . . . And how urgent is it?’
‘There is no great urgency, that is, no urgency at all . . . Darya Arkadyevna!’ I finally made up my mind. ‘Forgive me: perhaps I have deceived you. Everything I have told you is true, but the toy is not the point.’
Darya put down her pencil and now looked at me attentively, without blinking, frowning very slightly (or did I imagine the frown?).
‘But how would I know what the point is?’ I continued, stumbling, feeling a sharp, burning shame. ‘The toy is just a straw: I am clutching at it now so as not to drown—but perhaps I have already drowned . . . I have no life. An incomprehensible expression, isn’t it? I am speaking in random words, taking words as they come. A nun at the convent told me about you . . .’
‘That was probably Sister Yelizaveta,’ my new acquaintance said thoughtfully.
‘Yes, that is—but how would I . . . Perhaps you know how . . .’
Here I lost the thread completely: ‘my petrol ran out,’ in the words of the old joke about Stirlitz, the Soviet spy who gave the cat petrol to drink. We were silent for perhaps half a minute. It was pleasant to be silent with her: no one hurried you, no one forced you to speak. If only I could do something about my sharp, burning shame! Why had I begun at all? With my psychologist I had never felt shame: somehow she arranged the sessions so that there was nothing to be ashamed of with her, and no one to be ashamed before. There—go to her, pay two thousand for the visit, have one more useless conversation about what frightens you and what does not . . .
‘You want,’ Darya began softly, ‘for me to reveal to you what you should do. That is a joy to hear, only I am no seer, no prophetess, not even a psychologist. I just . . . sew little toys . . .’
Yes, of course, she was a hundred per cent right! Precisely what I had feared to hear, she had said, and almost in the very words. Who in our time works with other people’s spiritual wounds without training or a position? To my shame was added a feeling of remorse. Where had I really thrust myself? I had upset an honest woman with a fantastically inappropriate request—a woman who earns her daily crust with her own hands. So much for trusting Orthodox people with their enthusiastic advice!
I stood up and muttered crumpled apologies. I do not remember now what exactly I said; I am not sure I even understood at the time what I was saying. Out of awkwardness I forgot to take a proper leave from the mistress of the workshop, to shake her hand in farewell. And had she even offered me her hand to say goodbye? That too I do not remember. Well, then: such is the property of memory—to overgrow, to cover the unpleasant with grass.

13

I forgot about my order. And what sort of order was it, with your leave, if we had not concluded an agreement even in words and I had not paid a deposit? Instead I disgraced myself like a teenager—I had not disgraced myself this way even as a teenager . . . You can imagine my surprise when, four days later, a vaguely familiar number appeared on the screen of my telephone.
‘Oleg Valeryevich? I have finished everything!’
To my question of when I might come and collect the work, the craftswoman explained that it would be no trouble for her to drop the figure off herself: she was in town from time to time, doing her shopping, delivering orders. We agreed that she would call at my flat around five in the evening the next day. I gave the address of my city flat, thinking at the same time: ‘How fearless she is! Not afraid to go to strangers’ homes. As if she lived in some other Russia. There really is something of the holy fool about her!’ (Another thought came to me: ‘And on my side, is it not tactless to invite a still-young woman to my home?’ But it came and went: my new acquaintance was clearly not one of those complicated people of excessive intelligence beside whom you are afraid even to sneeze.)
At five in the evening the doorbell rang in the hall. Darya, having taken only a few steps into the flat, took something from her large shoulder bag and, with a sly, cunning expression, held out to me on both palms the new Kara.
Yes, it was her, of course! Resembling both my daughter’s toy and the ‘furry sister’ of my childhood at once. There was something childish, innocent, toy-like in the expression of the little face—and at the same time, a high lifelikeness, not photographic but of another kind, a characterful, essential kind.
‘Juniper,’ the craftswoman explained laconically. ‘I gave it a coat of varnish.’
I came to my senses and invited my guest to have tea.
Over tea we settled the account, and I, of my own accord, added one more note to the sum she had named.
‘That is superfluous,’ Darya said with calm dignity, ‘but I will not stand on ceremony—I’ll take it. Thank you!’
‘You probably don’t have orders every day?’ I could not help asking.
‘Not every day,’ she confirmed. ‘You can’t predict ahead.’
‘Surely you have enough to live on?’ somehow escaped me. ‘Forgive me: it’s not my business, of course . . .’
My interlocutor smiled. She explained:
‘You cannot imagine on how little I can survive in a month!’
‘On how little?’ I asked, curious.
‘On however little!’ she answered trustingly. ‘What you paid me today—that will last me a month, if I keep to the bare necessities.’
I could only shake my head, marvelling at this feat of self-restraint.
The moment came when all the pleasantries had been said and it was time to know when to leave. And I, instead of the words appropriate to the moment—there, some wild fly had bitten me again!—suddenly said:
‘Darya Arkadyevna, we are about to say goodbye and will probably never see each other again, I will not trouble you further. In that connection, may I ask you one question, which you will most likely not answer, but at least I will be at peace for having asked it?’
Having waited for her silent nod, I cleared my throat and said, as if not in my own voice:
‘If Kara had not been put to sleep, might my daughter still be alive?’
Darya was not surprised by my question. She sat for a few seconds as if listening to something inward, inclining her ear to a voice I could not hear. Then she asked, as of something self-evident:
‘Would you tell me everything from the very beginning, in detail? About your daughter, about your wife—everything?’
And I began to tell her.
It seemed to me that my story would stretch over a couple of hours, but it went more easily, more simply, than usual. My interlocutor’s silence was inviting—not indifferent, but not importunately clinging either, precisely such that my speech could flow freely, no more, no less. I got up, paced about the kitchen, opened the vent, closed the vent, made myself coffee in the Turkish pot, and, catching myself, offered her some—while she sat all that time, probably in the very same pose, not interrupting me once, not dropping a single little word. True, at the moment of my account of the visit to the ‘cosmo-energeticist of the highest initiations’, she laughed ringingly, like a sixteen-year-old girl—and I laughed too! But on the whole, of course, there was little that was cheerful in my story.
‘I don't think one died because of the other,’ Darya began slowly, cautiously, when I had finally run out of breath. ‘There is hardly any . . . direct connection here. And yet you are guilty before your little dog.’
‘In what way?’ I asked hurriedly. ‘For having had her put to sleep?’
‘No, not for that—that was not your decision. But you knew in advance that she would be put to sleep? And you did not say goodbye before it. And she was hurt by that!’
I sighed heavily.
‘There, there,’ Darya said pacifyingly. ‘Don't go rolling about the floor in little balls, like a mercury thermometer—you won’t be able to gather yourself up again. You see . . . you did not tell me everything!’
‘Not everything?’ I was surprised. ‘What have I forgotten?’
‘I don’t know,’ my interlocutor explained laconically. ‘Something important is missing.’
‘And do you not know what exactly?’
‘How would I know, Oleg Valeryevich? I don’t read thoughts. And if I did . . . can one really speak aloud about anything at all, until the person himself says it aloud?’
‘So then . . . so then, one day I will remember and one day I will tell you,’ I found to say. ‘You won’t drive me away?’
‘No, I won’t drive you away,’ I was told, even with a certain solemnity. ‘Once, someone did not refuse me. So I do not refuse either.’
(‘How astonishing,’ I thought, ‘how she answers all joking questions with complete seriousness, as if to make it clear that in life there is too little time for trifles.’)
‘It’s funny, though,’ I remarked aloud, ‘that you now say, “I won’t drive you away”, and a few days ago . . .’
‘. . . I almost drove you away?’ she caught my meaning from a half-word. ‘I did not drive you away even then! It is simply how it is done . . .’
‘By whom is it done?’
‘Well, first, it has to be so—I simply feel it. Second, it is written in the Gospel.’
‘I don’t recall such a thing in the Gospels!’ I admitted honestly.
‘It is not from those Gospels!’ Darya explained, a little guiltily. ‘It is from the Little Prince’s Gospel.’
I sat for ten seconds, spellbound by that singular title. Then I pronounced, cautiously, afraid of frightening off the flickering meaning with mockery:
‘What, then—the Little Prince wrote his own Gospel?’
‘N-no,’ it was clear my interlocutor was not sure whether it was worth sharing all the details with me. ‘Or yes, as you like—only we are talking about different people . . . In general, in style it is not quite a Gospel. It rather resembles Zarathustra . . .’
‘Good Lord, Zarathustra?’ I was astonished. ‘Nietzsche’s Zarathustra?’ (Darya nodded, embarrassed.) ‘And may one read . . . this astonishing text of yours?’
‘It is not mine. One day,’ I was told, almost reluctantly. ‘I would not promise . . .’
‘Very well, don’t promise—but I will hope. Your very name bids you make gifts and presents—dar, ‘gift’, in Russian . . . though I suppose you have heard that joke before,’ I tried to flatter her playfully.
‘You see,’ Darya responded without any humour, again showing that she did not want to understand any jokes told out of idleness, for the sake of empty wordplay, ‘it is not quite my name.’
‘Whose is it, then?’ I did not understand.
‘I put it badly: “Darya” is my everyday name, but in my passport it is another.’
‘And which one?’
‘Dorothea.’
‘It never rains but it pours . . .’ I muttered. Darya gave a short laugh. ‘So that is what Sister Yelizaveta was telling me . . . Dorothea, then—is it not the same as Theodora, only with the syllables rearranged?’
‘Well, yes,’ she confirmed calmly. ‘ “Dorothea” and “Fedora” are one and the same name in essence. Why are you looking at me so attentively?’
‘Well, I am trying to work out whether you resemble Dostoevsky or not—for he is, whichever way you turn it, your namesake.’
‘God be with you, Oleg Valeryevich!’ My interlocutor laughed merrily. ‘I resemble him in nothing, though he is my namesake! And, if you will permit me to confess it, I do not even particularly like him.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he takes some small wound, or even a large wound, and scratches at it, scratches at it . . . That is probably to show how one must not behave, how bad it is—but you grow tired of it. Though who am I to judge him? He foresaw much, he saved many, and for that thanks be to him, a bow to the ground. What am I beside him, what sort of comparison? It is even ridiculous. One might as well compare me to Theodoric…’
‘To which Theodoric?’ I did not immediately grasp.
‘Why, to that one!’ the craftswoman explained. ‘The one with the roses around him, so that he “might not dream of the storm of life”. And I do not dream of it either. There is nothing good in storms.’
The author of this book shook his head slightly, stunned by the ease with which she had quoted Blok. He admitted:
‘You are like a mountain rock: unremarkable on the outside—forgive me if that sounds offensive!—but if you dig into it, pure gold. You yourself are like your two-layered name. I never tire of admiring you!’
Darya Arkadyevna gave a quiet chuckle, which might have meant doubt, or laughter, or everything at once.
‘And there is one more little sheep,’ she suddenly said.
‘I am a little sheep?’ I was astonished.
‘You, you—who else . . .’
‘And do you have many others?’
‘Well, there are a couple . . .’
‘Very well, you will tell me later. I don’t know whether to be offended or proud of such a designation . . .’
‘There is nothing much to be proud of here, and you should not be offended either . . . Well, Oleg Valeryevich!’ She gave me a bright smile and held out her hand in farewell. ‘You may come to me at any time, only warn me in advance. If I am busy, you will sit and be bored, but when I am working with my hands I can both listen and talk—and for something important I will put my handiwork aside. Remember, remember what happened to you in your youth! Perhaps then the mosaic will come together. Or just come anyway.’
A stupid thought jumped out of me as I shook her hand, and I voiced that thought:
‘Thank you! I hope you did not think anything bad about me: that . . .’ Here I faltered, realising it would have been better not to begin.
‘—That you are struck by my unearthly beauty and have signed up as a suitor?’ she finished easily for me, barely holding back her laughter. ‘Don’t worry, it never entered my head! You told me the other day that your ex-wife is prettier, and that my face is quite peasant-like.’
‘Did I really say that?’ I was frightened. ‘Aloud?’
‘What, not aloud? Forgive me. I have several more clients waiting for my handiwork today, so forgive me—I must run!’
And she was gone.
After her departure I wandered about the flat for a while, trying somehow to arrange, to shape the whirlwind of thoughts, feelings, impressions. I made my way to the bathroom and glanced in the mirror. I put curved horns to my head, making them with my hands.
‘You really are a ram, Oleg,’ I said aloud to myself. ‘A real ram, who understands nothing about life. But you, unlike many others, at least looked in the mirror and understood your ram-like essence. Your wool is already going grey, and in general there is not much use for you on the farm—but live a while longer, all right?’
‘And what if Kara—in my childhood, at least—perceived me precisely as a ram that needed herding?’ flashed through my mind—a thought, slightly wounding to my self-esteem. I went back to the kitchen, took the figurine in my hands and examined it carefully.
Kara looked up at me with a merry squint. Exactly like Darya Arkadyevna when she had first crossed the threshold of my flat.

Part Two



1

‘Not a penny to our name, and then suddenly a windfall,’ says the Russian proverb. When a man does not want to live, he is of no interest to those around him either—but the moment he stirs even a little, people he had quite forgotten reappear in his life, as if from nowhere. The next morning—the first Saturday of June—I received two whole letters.
The first turned out to be from a chance young acquaintance to whom I had once, in the course of conversation, given my business card. I barely remembered the lad. Well, well—a whole long letter!

Oleg Valeryevich, hello!
You probably don’t even remember me. You told me on the evening suburban train about a year ago that life does not end—and at the time it really seemed to me that it had ended (a boy). You yourself were, it seems, not in the best shape then either, and yet you found some words of support for a stranger. Thank you. So of course I remember you.
Life is a heavy thing, and some naively think it is easier for the young. Yeah, right (sarcasm intended). No one knows how to live it, neither the young nor the old, nobody, no-bo-dy—we all poke at it like blind kittens, and then we fall into a pit . . .
Perhaps in the meantime you have discovered what people live for? I am not laughing. I am asking seriously.
My classmates don’t think about such things, and my questions seem funny to them. And what seems funny to me is what matters to them. Everything in their lives is unreal, and they themselves are like plastic, both the girls and the boys. You feel like some Clarissa McClellan . . . Is this even curable? And it ought to be cured by now, because in a year school will be over and the brave new world of adult life will begin. The same, pardon me, testicles, only from the side.
My parents are infinitely sweet people. But anyone’s parents are like his arm or his leg. You don’t consult your arm or your leg, do you? And if you do consult them, I have bad news for you.
That last sentence was unnecessary. But I’ll leave it.
I have a proposal for you. Let’s meet one day, walk around the city? You’ll tell me about your wife, who left you, and I’ll again, as last time, blurt out something tactless in an attempt to comfort you . . .
Listen—you were sixteen too! How did you live it? Did you fight anyone? Did you defend anyone? (Whom does one need to defend in this life?) Did you listen to some trash, smoke grass, or whatever it was you had in the ‘holy nineties’? Forgive these stupid questions, but I want to know, I very much want to know all of it.
Here is my number: [phone number]. Messengers are linked to it. Don’t be shy, write. By the way, I am using email for the first time in my life. You feel like a grown-up person, funny.
You will probably delete my letter without reading it. Well, that’s that, I won’t make a second attempt. But if you don’t delete it, then consider this a signal for help. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. Because sometimes things are very bad, very bad.
Now I am thinking about how to sign off. I have obvious problems accepting my own name; in two or three years, I suspect, it will pass, but for now it hasn’t. So, to aggravate it further, I sign myself as

Karlusha

Please don’t be angry if anything was rude. I am sixteen and a half, I don’t even understand which things are rude. I would like someone to explain that to me too . . .

Such was the letter, at once insolent and touching—and as I read it, I both frowned and smiled. Indeed, still very much a ‘boy’, as this Karlusha himself certified in the second paragraph—though at his age I certainly did not think so much about life (or invent so much). We, the children of the nineties, were coarser and simpler. What sort of educator for tenth-graders was I? And yet something had to be answered: we are, after all, ‘responsible for those we have tamed’, and the fact that everyone and his dog has worn that phrase threadbare over the past seventy years does not mean it has lost its truth. And it seems I had tamed him, with that single conversation—strange as it was. Had I really told the lad about Kristina? Well, well . . .
No sooner had I remembered Kristina than a message arrived from her—you won’t believe it.
 
Are you very busy this morning? If not, I’d like to come over?

2

Kristina had barely changed in two years: black hair arranged attractively, lips lightly touched with lipstick. The same slim figure, the same narrow waist. Fine wrinkles around the eyes . . . My ex-wife offered me her cheek for a kiss, in the French manner.
‘You look well,’ she informed me, having looked me up and down. Her gaze was more fastidious than her words, and more critical. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Well, I'm just about to tell you what I’ve been doing for two years, during which you never even rang,’ I blurted out—quite the opposite of what I had meant to say. I had, of course, wanted the reproach to sound jokey. I don’t know how far I succeeded in reality. By the look of it, not at all, because her eyebrows climbed in surprise:
‘Was I supposed to?’
‘No—and I’m not obliged to give an account of myself either.’
‘Why are you doing this, why—I came over in quite a different mood . . . Let’s go into the sitting room, why are we stuck in the hall? That sofa of yours is ancient—left over from the previous owners? Judging by the sofa, no woman has appeared in your life yet . . . So, then,’ she sat down, inviting me to sit as well, ‘so, then, Oleg . . . I don’t even know how to begin. Ugh, what stupidity! Wait, let me gather my thoughts . . .
‘I . . . have also thought for a long time about what happened to us then,’ Kristina continued half a minute later. ‘I say “also” because you, it seems, were searching for causes too, in your own style, materialist style . . .’
‘Yes, that’s the sort of unspiritual person I am, imagine that,’ I could not resist again, and again I blurted out the wrong thing.
‘Well, there we go again: why are you taking it out on me? It’s unintelligent, and ignoble, and generally . . . I have found a spiritual father, Oleg. He has given, and continues to give, answers to my questions! If you knew how he has helped me all this time!’
‘Well, I’m sincerely glad,’ I muttered.
‘Not very sincerely, possibly, judging by your tone . . . There, you have infected me with your vindictiveness too, and I didn’t want it! Bad, bad . . . But he cannot answer all my questions.’
‘Why not? By the way, forgive me, a digression: which church does he serve in?’
‘Savely Ivanovich does not serve,’ Kristina explained. ‘He really was a rector—I’ve forgotten where, someone told me—but he asked the bishop’s permission to retire for health reasons. He now runs a publishing house of Orthodox literature.’
‘And is that allowed?’ I doubted.
‘What, to run an Orthodox publishing house?’
‘No! How is it . . . to be a spiritual father to one’s children after retiring?’
‘Of course it's allowed—what an army-barracks idea you have of church life! I’m amazed, Oleg . . . You asked me why Savely Ivanovich cannot answer all the questions. Because it takes two.’
‘Two?’
‘Both parents of a child who died before their time. By the way, he considers that the ancestral sin of mothers usually manifests in their sons, and of fathers, in their daughters.’
‘And where is that written?’ I asked sceptically.
‘It isn’t written anywhere—it’s a private theological opinion, but . . . You don’t seem to believe me?’
I got up from the sofa and went to the window, turning my back on her.
‘It isn’t that I don’t believe you, Kristina—it’s that you land on my head so suddenly with a request to take you at your word, immediately . . .’
‘I’m not asking you to take me at my word immediately . . .’
‘You want to go with me to this Father Savvaty of yours, so that he can answer your questions, shift all the guilt onto me, and lift the stone from your soul?’ I finally understood.
‘Savely Ivanovich, Oleg, Savely, please don’t mix it up, don’t call him Savvaty to his face . . . Well, yes! You formulate it all so sharply, in such unfriendly words, that I feel ashamed—and I don’t think I’ve done anything bad to you . . .’
‘Whatever keeps the child amused . . .’ I sighed: it was Saturday, after all, a day off. ‘And when does Father Savely want to see us?’
‘Oh, you really agree?’ Kristina threw up her hands joyfully. ‘If you agreed, then . . . today. To be honest, he invited us to his place for today, and precisely the two of us . . .’
I smirked at this naive Orthodox unceremoniousness. I explained my smirk:
‘You should have begun with that!’
‘And I was trying, Oleg! You simply didn't let me get a word in . . .’

3

The Orthodox publishing house Cyril and Methodius was on the ground floor of a modern building with a split-level roof, projections, columns, bay windows—so that it was difficult to form an idea either of the building’s appearance or of the architect’s intention. In the publishing house’s name, as Kristina explained to me on the way, there was a reference to the surname of the editor-in-chief.
Savely Ivanovich Mefodyev received us in his study—not a large one, but seeming spacious because of the small number of pieces of furniture in it. There was a desk (pushed into a corner and neatly tidied: evidently it was seldom used), a large comfortable armchair (into which the host lowered himself), a short sofa for visitors (assigned to us), and a floor lamp—nothing else, not counting the shelves of books and papers. On each wall hung a glazed photograph of one of the Russian monasteries—or possibly it was the same monastery, taken from different angles and in different seasons. Clever and, I suppose, stylish; I could not explain to myself why this decorative solution irritated me slightly. There were no icons, contrary to the usual Orthodox custom. Perhaps icons really are superfluous in a study . . .
Something elusively troubled me—well, yes, it was that single small window high up under the ceiling, opaque: one could not say with certainty what lay behind that window—the street, or simply a recess with a light bulb in it.
‘You are a guest here,’ I reminded myself, ‘so criticising is not your business. Your icons probably seem tasteless to somebody too. Keep quiet!’
Savely Ivanovich himself made, on the whole, a pleasant impression. I don’t know why on the way I had imagined he would be some sleek, fidgety pretty-boy. I was nowhere near right: a heavy build, almost gigantic in height, a large head; a full, spreading beard that had begun to grey but was still quite black; a striking, upright bearing. Something like Turgenev in his later years—or perhaps like a Russian merchant of the pre-revolutionary, even the pre-schism, era. My hand was shaken with a broad, powerful motion and I was invited to sit. My ex-wife and I sat down side by side, barely fitting onto the little sofa together.
‘Hristina has told me about you,’ the editor-in-chief began the conversation.
(He called her Hristina—the old, church form of her name, which she herself never actually used, and which he evidently had no intention of abandoning.)
‘His voice is pleasant too,’ I noted. ‘A sort of rumbling little bass, but not loud.’ I admitted aloud:
‘And I was told about you only this morning, Savely Ivanovich.’
‘And—good things?’ He smiled into his beard.
‘Yes, only good things . . .’
‘—But you are afraid of me all the same,’ he finished the thought. ‘The Russian people have been frightened, first by the Komsomol ringleaders, then by Orthodox old women who are zealous beyond their sense, and now they run from priests and churchmen as from the plague. Ah, how wrongly!’
‘You are probably right,’ I agreed.
‘Of course, of course, right! Look: have I claws on my hands, or horns on my head, or hooves, or a tail? Am I, in essence, a churchman? That secular service which the bishop blessed me to perform, anyone at all could perform, even you, for instance . . . It is simply the custom among Orthodox people that a person outwardly quite secular—and sometimes a holy fool altogether—takes upon himself the right to offer advice. Though what sort of advice can we offer one another? Almost none at all, because we are all sinful people . . .’
He fell silent, joining and parting the tips of the fingers of his powerful hands.
‘We are ready to listen to you attentively, Savely Ivanovich!’ Kristina helped him a little. That ‘we’ grated on me somewhat, but I had to restrain myself: I had put my own neck into the collar.
‘Ah, yes . . . You see, Oleg and Hristina, my dear creatures, many couples pass through their own trials and their own sorrows. Murmuring against God in such sorrows is almost inevitable, almost forgivable. And who are we to condemn those who murmur, who, like Job or Ivan Karamazov, shake the whole of heaven with a proud word: “Where is this God, who has need of the death of seven-year-olds?” ’ His voice pleasantly soothed, enveloped, as though we ourselves were seven-year-olds, as though to us, two pretty little children, someone were reading a fairy tale. ‘But let us first look at ourselves, search in our own memory. “The sins of youth” is what people sometimes call what we do when we enter life: a worn expression, almost vulgar, but accurate. And can sin be done away with by any sort of magic? No—neither by sorcery, nor by spells, nor by magic, nor by mysterious writings, nor by the intercession of eastern idols, nor by all sorts of other heathen devices can it be done away with.
(‘Surely Kristina told him about Dahlia?’ I was frightened. ‘Nonsense: she doesn’t know about her herself…’)
‘Only by penitential prayer,’ Savely Ivanovich continued his catechism lesson for the junior school, ‘and by the consciousness of sin—prayer, and understanding, no other way. How is this sin to be discovered in one’s memory, my good ones? And again I shall not reveal a secret to you: by prayer!’
Savely was silent for a little, as though waiting for us to absorb all the weight of his prescription.
‘But if you think that all this is done in isolation,’ he began again, ‘then you are mistaken. Not in isolation from the Orthodox world, and not in isolation from one another either. The spouses are grieved by their parental failure and hide their faces from one another; they have even parted, they have even been proclaimed and declared strangers to one another by Caesar’s decree—but surely not forever? It is frightening to utter that “forever”! And I will tell you that it is precisely here that mutual forgiveness could become the first stone in the foundation of a union—at first of a spiritual union only. And after that—what will the Lord not permit?’ He joined the tips of his fingers again and shifted his gaze from Kristina to me and back.
So that was how it was . . . I stole a glance at my ex-wife: surely these two had agreed on everything in advance? It seemed not: she had visibly reddened and lowered her eyes. She began with difficulty:
‘We are not married in church, father, I have already told you, and never were . . .’
‘Ah! . .’ Savely Ivanovich opened his hands in annoyance and laid them helplessly on the arms of his chair: as much as to say, I am speaking to you of what matters, and you bring me such trifles as arguments. ‘How many times have I explained to you, Hristina, that there is no place for bureaucratic mental contrivance in the spiritual kingdom, where everything breathes, everything is free! Is God, then, a clerk from the social services?’
‘I don’t know who God is, but He is certainly not a clerk from the social services—that is true,’ I muttered. Savely Ivanovich nodded sedately, with satisfaction, and, stroking his beard, fixed his eyes on me. As much as to say: you have agreed with me voluntarily—so what then?
Now they were both looking at me: I felt Kristina’s gaze on my right cheek. Nothing had been said, but a question hung silently in the air: I needed to be reconciled with my ex-wife (had we quarrelled, then?), perhaps even to come back together, to make some joint pilgrimage, to recall and repent of ‘the sins of youth’—and then God would ‘send us life’ (where did that come from?), and what would He not permit us, perhaps He would even reward us with new children, like Job, and our old age in a couple of decades would turn out dear and joyful, and not lonely, dreary, and shameful. Everyone in this study except me had already understood this, and only I was holding it up, the stubborn one.
It is hard to think under such close attention to one’s person, but I did think—I even closed my eyes, disregarding the norms of propriety. Everything in Mefodyev’s reasoning was not merely smooth but, in his own words, almost flawless. Why was it not quite flawless?
Because—I suddenly understood—for two years, while I floundered in my black despair—or rather, did not flounder but simply drifted with the current like a piece of wood—this woman sitting to my right had forgotten my existence entirely. Behaviour that is in no way shameful for an ex-wife: as long as she remains precisely an ex-wife, I have no grievance against her. But for a lifelong companion, for the one of whom it is said, ‘What God has joined, let no man put asunder’, what should one call such behaviour? Betrayal? ‘Betrayal,’ Mefodyev would certainly object, ‘is too weighty a word, one it is indecent to fling about.’ And in any case, if it comes to that, the apostle Peter himself betrayed Christ, yet Christ after the resurrection did not disdain His disciple. And better than any reasoning about betrayal would be for me to turn the page and forgive everyone. Only—does one forgive those who have not even yet been ashamed of what they did? And is there much use in such forgiveness?
All this I could have said outright—and the words would have sounded, of course, out of place in that setting, hostile, spiteful, vile. Instead, opening my eyes, I spoke (and where did the resourcefulness come from?):
‘Dear Kristina, dear Savely Ivanovich! While I was sitting and listening to you, a fairy tale came into my mind. Are you ready to hear it?’
‘By all means,’ Mefodyev smiled.
‘Thank you!’ I thanked him. ‘My fairy tale will be a fairy tale about Baron Munchausen.
‘Once upon a time there lived a Baron Munchausen, and, wearying of the bachelor life, he married the daughter of a Russian second lieutenant killed in a duel. In the eighth year of their marriage, lightning struck the castle where he had settled with his wife and split it in two. Baron Munchausen, who happened to be sitting on the balcony, flew from that balcony head over heels and found himself in a swamp. “Well, how unpleasant!” observed the baroness. “You were a baron, and now you’re a frog. I’ll pack my things and go to Baden-Baden!” “And what am I to do?” croaked the former baron—and indeed his voice now strongly resembled a frog’s. “You? Pull yourself out by your hair, as you did once before!” And the baroness vanished: gone without a trace. And Munchausen went on sitting up to his neck in the swampy ooze.
A garrulous gypsy woman came wandering through that region, waving her bright eight-coloured shawl, and, having asked for her reward in advance, held out her hand to him—but did not pull him out of the mire. A sorceress passed by—an inhabitant of the cemetery—but she did not help either. At last a simple peasant woman in a patchwork skirt came by—and gave the former baron a glass of water. Gathering strength from her water, Munchausen somehow clambered out of the swamp, and, though still standing on its edge, began to build himself a hut out of brushwood. Exhausted, he fell asleep in that hut.
Whom did he see when he came out of his hut in the morning? The baroness, sitting on a suitcase!
“The wise old owl who lives in the ruins of the chapel has told me that spouses ought to be together,” the baroness said to him. “Why do you need this horrid hut? It is not too late to repair our castle.”
“Really?” the baron marvelled. “Good and wise words. And where were you, my dear, when I was sitting in the swamp and growing more and more like a frog with every day?”
The end of this fairy tale is not written: here we leave our heroes. And here, dear Savely Ivanovich, I too am obliged to leave you. Forgive me—business!’
Rising, I held out my hand to Mefodyev, whose handshake at parting was no longer so gripping, and who himself looked slightly disconcerted. Whether Kristina was embarrassed, I do not know: I did not even look at her as I left. On the one hand, I felt awkward about this unceremonious departure; on the other, I was still angry with her.
‘An owl in the ruins of a chapel,’ I thought on my way out. ‘Well, well. There were owls and owls, and not all of them live in ruins.’

4

Lunching in the food court of a shopping centre (my usual way of having lunch when I was too lazy to cook, and I was lazy rather often), I tried to understand what exactly had made me so angry with the two of them. Had this happened half a year, even a month ago, I would have nodded obediently at all Savely’s catechetical teachings and agreed with his every word. Something had changed in me, something had shifted, and the cause of it was the woman who sewed soft toys, no one else (not Dahlia Vyacheslavovna, surely!). Why? Could it be that my ‘simple peasant woman’ had charmed me, attracted me as a woman? It seems not: even today I had noted with melancholy pleasure how much femininity, attractiveness, and grace there still was in Kristina. True, she is two years younger than I am . . .
Was it because my baroness had not repented of going off to Baden-Baden and leaving me to sit in the swamp, that I was angry with her? So had I become finally angry over the past month? She might still have repented, perhaps even today—and I had not given her the time . . .
Both courses had been eaten and the fruit drink drunk when I suddenly understood: the point was that all three of us, including even Mefodyev, and certainly not excluding me, were ordinary people—and my new acquaintance was beyond-the-ordinary. Having tasted the beyond-ordinary, one no longer wants to return to the commonplace. ‘Tasting, I have tasted a little honey . . .’ Where was that from? The epigraph to Lermontov’s Mtsyri, I think. Mira loved Mtsyri . . . And am I right to think of her as beyond-the-ordinary, or am I seeing it where there is nothing?
I dialled Darya Arkadyevna’s number, but no one picked up at the other end. Then, myself marvelling at my own unceremoniousness, I got into my ‘workhorse’ and half an hour later was standing at the gate of her dacha plot.
The gate, contrary to expectation, was not locked. ‘I will just walk round the house to make sure she is all right,’ I said to myself. ‘I won’t even knock at the door.’
But knocking was not required: after only a dozen steps, I suddenly saw Darya.
She, kneeling in the grass, nodded to me, smiling faintly, and invited me over with a gesture with which she might have stroked an invisible dog. I understood that I could approach, but carefully, quietly—and that is what I did. I crouched down beside her.
A hedgehog was sitting in the grass.
‘I was mowing the grass and came across her,’ Darya Arkadyevna explained in a half-whisper, dropping her greeting, as though she had seen me a quarter of an hour before. ‘Don’t be afraid, I didn’t hurt her! I think it is a she, and I think she is pregnant . . . I am feeding her apple cores and carrot tops.’
And indeed: the hedgehog, unafraid, was taking the cores from her hand.
‘That is why she doesn’t run away—because she’s pregnant,’ I reasoned.
‘Yes,’ Darya confirmed, ‘or rather, not quite. I asked her not to go.’
I looked at my new acquaintance roughly the way adults look at a child. She caught my gaze. She asked:
‘Do you doubt that I will feed her up?’
‘Not that I doubt it exactly . . .’ I did, of course, doubt: both that the hedgehog had obeyed her request, and that the whole undertaking was necessary, seeming to me a lady’s whim like feeding ducks in winter.
‘Perhaps I won’t feed her up,’ she agreed easily. ‘I am not a hedgehog breeder, or whatever they are called . . . Well, if I don’t manage it, it was not meant to be.’
I felt ashamed: while I had been uselessly being clever about her indulging in excess sentimentality, she had been doing a small but substantial thing—feeding a hedgehog.
‘Let us move over under the juniper, or you will not kneel down and will soon tire,’ Darya suggested. ‘There are benches there too, two of them.’
‘I am not kneeling because I am afraid of ticks,’ I explained on the way to the tall juniper, taller than the house. ‘And not at all out of squeamishness.’
‘There are no ticks here,’ my companion answered. ‘I have never once seen one.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked, curious.
‘There is a lot of tansy, wormwood—they don’t like it. I didn’t plant them; they seeded themselves . . . And in general, Oleg Valeryevich: while you are here, nothing bad will happen to you. I promise.’
‘You can drop the patronymic . . . What charming benches!’
‘The Prince put them there,’ I was told. ‘Or even his father.’
‘The Little Prince’s father?’ I asked, smiling. ‘Saint-Exup;ry?’
‘No, you do not understand me . . . What, do you think I have lost my mind? I talk to a hedgehog, and princes set up benches for me . . .’
‘God be with you, Darya Arkadyevna!’ I was frightened. ‘I did not think anything of the sort . . . It is simply—what am I supposed to assume, if you tell me nothing about your Prince? You promised, after all, when the occasion arose.’
‘You can drop the patronymic with me too . . . But you never asked!’
‘I am asking now.’
‘Let me ask first: you probably did not come here for nothing? You . . . wanted to consult me?’
‘Right—and again you read my thoughts!’
‘No, no, why embarrass a girl? Tell me what has happened to you! Only wait—I’ll go into the house and fetch a plaid. Shall I bring you another? You don’t need one? A cold June—I don't remember one like it.’
The mistress of the house returned quickly and, wrapping herself in the plaid, fixed her attentive green eyes on me.

5

I briefly retold all the events of that Saturday, beginning with Karlusha’s letter and ending with the fairy tale about Baron Munchausen, fed to Mefodyev and to the servant of God Kristina. Listening to my tale, Darya had difficulty holding back a smile.
‘What?’ I asked, penitently, when I had finished. ‘Do you think I behaved badly?’
‘I don’t think anything, nothing at all . . .’
‘Should I have given her a chance?’
Darya shrugged—or perhaps simply hunched her shoulders against the cold:
‘Whether to give her a chance or not, that, if you please, is for you to decide: I am no matchmaker and no home-breaker. But you know how to tell a tale!’
‘I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry . . . And what will you say about Karlusha?’
‘Write to the boy, find a kind word for him,’ my interlocutor advised seriously. ‘Who knows, you may do a good deed. How old is he, you say: sixteen? How a person needs such a word at sixteen or seventeen! I myself was only seventeen when—’
‘When?’
‘—when I heard such a word—and more than one word, a great deal more!’
‘From the one you call the Prince?’
‘From whom else? But I . . . better I should tell you a tale, all right? First, I liked yours. Second, I want to know how much you will guess in mine, and what you will understand . . .’

The Tale of the Prince and the Rose

Once upon a time, there was a Garden in a certain kingdom, and in the Garden, a Flower Bed.
Gardeners visited the Garden regularly: they shaped the bushes with their shears and diligently added the necessary quantities of humus and mineral substances to the soil. Their work was called, in their learned language, the up-bringing of the stem. The flowers languished, discussed the news of the Bed, wove their petty intrigues. All flowers do so from time immemorial. Our Flowers—almost all of them—were only just preparing to bloom, and before blooming a great deal of foolishness creeps into a flower’s charming little head.
There grew in that garden a beautiful Rose, not yet opened—

‘—And that Rose, of course, was you!’
‘What makes you think so?’ Darya was almost offended. ‘I was never a Rose, not one single day of my life! I was a far more modest flower on that bed . . . And anyway: if you keep interrupting, I shall stop telling it!’

—not yet opened—and to our Rose a large black Beetle took to flying.
‘I am not a Beetle at all,’ the Beetle declared. ‘I am a Bumblebee! The others do not understand me, but you are special, and you shall be my chosen one!’
The other Flowers shook their heads at such goings-on, but they did not hasten to complain to the Gardeners.
There grew on that bed another plant as well, with two buds on two different stems from a single root. The first bud had already opened, and everyone could see before them an ordinary Cornflower, looking with disapproval at the other flowers for their ‘excessive prettiness’. But the second which stood nearest the gate would not open at all. Within the second bud lay hidden a Passionflower. How did a Passionflower come to a cold northern country? Why did it grow from the same root as the Cornflower? God knows! The tale does not say.
So it continued until the Prince came into the Garden.
He appeared in a simple Gardener’s apron, of the sort they wear when they snap their shears and do their dull up-bringing. But the Rose heard the Prince’s footsteps—and trembled.
The Beetle recognised the Prince too—and each day buzzed louder and more discontentedly. The Beetle watched the Rose jealously, and she bloomed more and more luxuriantly.
One spring night the Rose confessed to the Beetle that she loved the Prince. The next day the Beetle caused a great commotion in the Bed when he washed off his yellow stripes and proudly declared: he was not a useful Bumblebee but a harmful insect, one that deliberately gnaws at young shoots!
The Flowers made such a stir, discussing the news, that the Rose would have had a hard time of it—had not the Prince carefully dug her up and carried her off to his Castle.
Late in the evening of that same day, the Rose returned to the Garden, but the spiteful and envious Flowers—the Cornflower chief among them—had already complained about the ‘abductor’ to the Head Gardener. The Head Gardener decided that the Prince should be banished from the Garden. The Rose’s owners, to avoid further ‘thefts’, moved her to a distant orangery.
The Prince took off his Gardener’s apron and prepared to leave. All the flowers fell asleep under the influence of a sleep-inducing mist.
But the Passionflower woke, unfolded its petals for the first time, and, as had been foretold, let fall a splendid tear.
‘I cannot be your Rose, and I would not wish to be,’ the Passionflower whispered. ‘But I, like the Rose, know who you are. Your Highness! Allow me to be near you!’
Then the Prince magically separated the Passionflower from the root, moved it to a Secret Refuge, and turned it into his Fox—for it has been so ordained since the beginning of time that every Prince has his Fox, and no laws in the world can withstand this, including the laws of nature. No one noticed that one of the plants had lost an unremarkable bud.
For a whole month the Fox remained at the Prince’s feet, being instructed in royal sciences.
Afterwards the Prince returned to his planet—for that is how all Princes end. The Fox, however, moved into the Castle—the one where the Rose had dwelt for a single evening.
So the tale ends.

6

‘Your tale sounds wonderful!’ I admitted. ‘Only I’m afraid I understood little of it . . .’
‘Well, tell me what you did understand!’
‘I’ll try . . . The Garden with the flowers—that is some sort of . . . educational institution?’
‘You’ve guessed it! An Orthodox gymnasium.’
‘Well, that was not difficult . . . The Passionflower is you, and the Cornflower is your relative—correct?’
‘Correct! Olga, my cousin.’
‘The Rose is the acknowledged beauty of your class?’
‘A beauty, yes, that's right—though I don’t know about acknowledged . . . I simply admired her, and was glad for her! About the others I won’t say. Orthodox girls have, as a rule, all the defects of ordinary young girls, such as envy, and on top of that a cheap, book-learned grasp of their faith. That is why beauty was unfashionable in our eleventh year: pretty girls were discussed no more than the others, no one imitated them . . .’
‘There is probably a virtue in that, and not only a defect, don’t you think?’ I interrupted.
‘Yes,’ Darya agreed easily. ‘There is, of course, a virtue in it too.’
‘Was the beauty really called Rosa?’
‘What are you thinking! An unfashionable name, both fourteen years ago and now.’
‘And you won’t reveal the Rose’s real name to me?’
‘No, Oleg Valeryevich, I won’t,’ my companion smiled. ‘There must be an unspoken element in a fairy tale, mustn’t it? Otherwise it becomes an ancient epic, or worse—a newspaper article.’
‘It is hard to argue . . . The black Beetle who pretended to be a Bumblebee—he was a boy from your class?’
‘And there you are mistaken again! Our gymnasium was a girls’ school.’
‘Who was it, then?’ I was at a loss.
‘Think, guess . . .’
‘I am embarrassed to suggest it, but—a mannish girl with, er . . . lesbian inclinations?’
‘You said it,’ Darya Arkadyevna confirmed. ‘And I am glad I did not have to.’
‘Surely such . . . passions do not flourish in Orthodox gymnasiums?’ I doubted.
‘All sorts of things flourish there . . . And do I now look like a slanderer of the faith?’ She laughed shortly. ‘In any single-sex boarding school such things can happen, and it is not Orthodoxy that is to blame.’
‘Of course . . . So your ground-beetle, or whatever she was, made a “public coming-out”, as it is now the fashion to call it?’
‘Her name was Na . . .—no, no, I shan’t say! I don’t like Anglicisms in Russian speech either—but yes, alas, she did! Right during a lesson . . .’
‘I can imagine how it sounded in an Orthodox school . . . So then, after the uproar that followed, the Rose’s parents took her out of the gymnasium to keep her from harm, and the new teacher, the one you call the Prince, was “asked” to leave by the administration,’ I reasoned. ‘But before that, the Prince and the Rose spent a night together . . .’
My companion raised her eyebrows reproachfully:
‘Did I say “night”? An evening.’
‘Hm!’ I chuckled. ‘You know, one can understand the parents, and the school administration too . . .’
‘Everyone and each one can be understood in this story, Oleg Valeryevich,’ Darya objected briskly. ‘But I believed then, and I believe now, that nothing happened between those of whom you speak—I believe it as God is holy!’
‘Credo quia absurdum? Forgive me if that sounds harsh.’
‘Not at all—and even if quia absurdum. That God exists and that the soul is immortal—that, you know, is quia absurdum too.’
‘And once again I agree . . .’ I raised my palms before her in jest. ‘What strikes me most in your tale, and what I understand least, is your . . . explanation with the Prince. How did you not feel jealousy? Forgive me, Darya Arkadyevna, for asking with such directness . . .’
‘Jealousy?’ my companion repeated, even somewhat helplessly—and she sat in silence for a few seconds before she understood what I meant. ‘Oh, how wrongly you have understood everything, Oleg Valeryevich! Why should I have been jealous? I was not in love!’
‘You weren't?’ I was astonished. ‘Not even the tiniest bit?’
‘Not even the tiniest bit!’
‘But then . . . how difficult you are!’ I complained, half in jest.
‘Difficult,’ Darya confirmed with complete seriousness. ‘Only I do not impose myself on anyone.’
‘God be with you, that just slipped out . . . Explain it to me, fool that I am: if you were not even in love, how did you entrust yourself to a man who was almost a stranger? What were you seeking in him? Why did you ask to be near him?’
‘A great deal depends on whether you understand my answer, Oleg Valeryevich,’ Darya said, smiling slightly, but sadly. (I shivered, because the thought flashed through my mind with complete clarity: and if I don’t understand, I may, for all I know, be shown the door—or rather, the direction of the gate. And quite right: why waste time on such a dull person?) ‘How does one ask to be near a stranger in whom one is not even in love, and why? You see, there are people who are like a spring of living water. Perhaps they are such a spring only for three or four people, or even only for you and no one else in the whole world! But what is that to you? And when you understand this about another, everything else turns out not to be difficult. So ordinary proprieties are forgotten, and the necessary words are easily said.’
‘On the condition that you are a Passionflower, of course.’
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘And I want to remind you that the passionflower is so named after the Passion of Christ. Not the passions of men.’
I fell to thinking, afraid of frightening off the new understanding. I said slowly, cautiously:
‘Would it be true to say that you then discerned in the new teacher one who became a spiritual teacher to you? That relations with a spiritual teacher are not measured by the ordinary measure?’
Darya nodded, brightening:
‘Yes—let it be so. There, you have found a label, and your soul is at peace. And mine too . . .’
‘And is this label a bad one?’
‘A good one—and how else is one to speak, without labels! All words are labels, every one of them. As for your label, the Prince himself would have said that there are no non-spiritual teachers.’
‘What about PE teachers?’
‘No, it’s bearable . . . Oh, how I envy you, Darya Arkadyevna!’ and suddenly I said quite the opposite of what I had intended.
‘Why is that?’ She glanced at me merrily, sidelong.
‘Because at seventeen I was listening to the boy-band Hands Up!, and you were receiving wisdom from a living spiritual mentor.’
‘Well, each seeks what he seeks, and finds it,’ Darya Arkadyevna observed, with an ingenuous and slightly wounding directness. ‘Do not envy me, Oleg Valeryevich! There is nothing for me to boast of: we shall all lie down in the earth . . . Let us go into the house—I have quite frozen you!’

7

At the house I had to wait while the mistress lit the stove-cum-fireplace. Having dealt with that, she left the kitchen and was gone a good five minutes. She returned—and laid before me on the table A Personal Diary for Girls (so the cover announced), with a tiny padlock on the side. Fourteen years ago these girls’ diaries were fashionable, and even now one can buy such a thing.
‘I ought not to spoil you, but I need to finish an order,’ the mistress of the house explained. ‘Here, so that you are not bored in the meantime, I have brought you . . . some reading. I have opened it at the right page!’
She disappeared again into her workroom, from which after a while came the clatter of a sewing machine.
On the open page I read the entry which I reproduce from memory—as far as a no-longer-young man is capable of reproducing the personal diary of a young girl.

3 April 2009

What a day!
A. M.’s last day at school. He is leaving ‘of his own accord’.
No one looks up at him (except me). They are afraid.
The last lessons with him, the fifth and the sixth.
Five minutes before the end of the sixth lesson, R. M. came into the classroom. Everyone was told to go to the assembly hall. A functionary from the Interior Ministry had arrived; he would deliver a ‘very important’ lecture to the whole school. Attendance compulsory.
All very well. All very fine.
Everyone left. I went out with the others, so as not to draw attention, fell behind them, and came back.
A. M. is packing his bag, and now he has packed it. He is wondering whether to take the red rubber ball with him or leave it on the desk.
I come closer. Blood roars in my ears. He raises his eyes to me.
‘I am very grateful to you, A. M.,’ I say. ‘I meant to say it earlier, there simply was no occasion. I am, of course, the least talented of your pupils . . .’
‘That's not true, Dolly,’ he smiles.
‘Well, judging by my marks . . .’
‘Don’t judge by marks.’
‘I am very glad that you don’t judge people by them either. Here . . .’ I babble. ‘There was so much I wanted to say to you, and now I stand here, and nothing comes out . . .’
‘Dolinka, write to me, if you need to.’ That, I suppose, is him answering out of politeness. ‘Do you have my email?’
‘Everyone has it, you gave it to everyone . . .’
Very nice, but I have run out of breath. I was never clever, and now I have lost the last of my wits. He is about to leave—he cannot stand here forever. And he might as well leave. He is not my fianc;, not my beloved, not a close one: a stranger.
I wonder whether anyone on the whole earth will ever understand what I am about to say to him, and, above all, why I am about to say it. They won’t understand, don’t hope for it. They will think me nothing but a lovesick idiot. How is one to explain that this is not about that? Impossible.
I take a deep breath. And I say, looking him straight in the eyes:
‘Your Highness! I address you with a request I have been thinking about for a whole week. Allow me to be your Fox!’

Having read to this point, I closed A Personal Diary for Girls and put it aside.
Reading it was as absorbing, but, after one page, as unbearable, as The Story of a Soul, the life of Saint Th;r;se of Lisieux, a French woman ascetic of the nineteenth century, which once fell into my hands at someone’s house—in form also a ‘personal diary’, something out of a girl’s annual.
I did not, of course, suspect Darya Arkadyevna of conscious deception, but until that moment I had assumed she had embellished her recollections a little: such a natural occupation, after all, for a human being—and what else is one to do with recollections but embellish them? And time itself distorts: time is a thick lens, and the more years pass, the more convex this lens becomes, the more it magnifies the events of the past. What seemed to young Darya the relations of a Disciple and a Master might have turned out, on inspection, to be nothing more than an ordinary adolescent crush; the ‘abduction’ of the Rose would be an ordinary joint walk between a teacher and a pretty schoolgirl; the ground-beetle Natalya had scarcely declared aloud that, hm, let us leave that out, but had simply blurted out some stupidity during a lesson; the Secret Refuge had most likely existed only in the imagination (the narrator had not run away from home, surely?), and so on, and so forth.
The testimony lying before me—a documentary testimony, which could not have been forged in five minutes—left not one stone standing of my condescending assumptions. Reality turned out not poorer but richer than the tale. ‘Allow me to be your Fox!’ What a thing to say! And he had found something to answer her, had he not: he had not driven her away, but—what? He had made her his Fox . . .
At the age of seventeen, Darya Arkadyevna had, independently, without any compulsion, without following any vulgar fashion, sought out a spiritual teacher and for some time attended to his instructions, likening herself in this to some Vivekananda or other hero of grey-bearded antiquity. (At that very age at which the author of these notes, as has already been mentioned, was listening to the boy-band Hands Up!—I blush once more.) Fourteen years have passed, and those instructions have not faded or dimmed in her memory. Why, then, should I be surprised that she is now capable of reading thoughts! And what will she be doing in a couple of years—walking on water?

 
8

The mistress of the house, coming out of her workroom, took the Diary and carried it away, commenting with a rough humour:
‘Enough of a good thing!’
Perhaps she felt a little awkward about exposing her seventeen-year-old self to my judgement . . .
She came back. Sat down opposite me. Announced:
‘We can’t only be enjoying ourselves! We need to do a little work too. Have you still not remembered what you wanted to?’
‘No!’ I was surprised.
‘It seems you haven’t been trying very hard.’
‘Not very hard, that is true,’ I confessed. ‘But if I have forgotten something, I don’t even know how to remember it!’
‘Well, then I shall have to help you just the slightest bit . . .’
‘How will you help me?’ I chuckled merrily but mistrustfully. ‘Two people before you have already tried . . .’
‘I know, I know: both the psychologist with a diploma, and your sorceress. Grandfather beat and beat it—did not break it; grandmother beat and beat it—did not break it; and then the mouse ran by, flicked its tail . . . Get dressed, Oleg Valeryevich!’ (I had managed to take off my jacket.) ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where to?’ I was taken aback, softened as I was by the warmth of the kitchen.
‘To remember,’ I was told laconically.
I had hardly blinked before we were already leaving the house and Darya was locking the door with a key.
‘And can we not remember inside the house?’ I tried to resist.
‘The slug-a-bed gets little bread,’ I was presented with a priceless pearl of folk wisdom. ‘Don’t be afraid, it’s only five kilometres.’
‘ “Only” and “five kilometres” don’t rhyme in the same sentence for me,’ I sighed, and made a last attempt: ‘Can’t we drive those “only” five kilometres in the car?’
‘In my childhood my parents had a goat,’ the craftswoman informed me, without giving a direct answer. ‘And she used to be just as stubborn sometimes . . .’
I gave a short chuckle, picturing Darya Arkadyevna taking out a stick she had brought along in advance and laying it across my spine, as across a disobedient goat . . . Laughter aside, but with her, perhaps, it was quite possible?
And we set off on foot. We left the gardening association, crossed the highway, then the railway—and kept moving across a field in which the grass turned out to be higher than a man’s height.
‘Darya Arkadyevna, have pity on an office worker!’ I wailed in jest. ‘You will orphan my clients . . . I am a man unaccustomed to such distances! And here there must be wild animals too . . .’
‘There are no beasts here larger than a hedgehog, Oleg Valeryevich,’ my guide threw back at me, without even glancing over her shoulder.
‘And if there are dogs?’
‘There are no wild ones here! And the village ones sit in their yards on chains.’
‘And quite right too, incidentally . . . Where are we going, anyway?’
‘To Safronovo,’ Darya explained. ‘But we won’t go to Safronovo—we’ll take a left, onto the little hill.’
‘And a little hill too . . .’ I groaned.
Jokes aside, but by the time we had climbed the little hill—the long June day was already leaning towards evening—I was quite exhausted. Darya spread out on the grass the plaid she had been carrying on her shoulders in the manner of a shawl. She asked me to lie on my back and sleep a little.
I gladly performed the first part of the request, and to the suggestion of sleeping I lightly remarked:
‘I don’t want to . . .’
‘I am going to touch the crown of your head,’ my companion warned me, not entering into any unnecessary argument with me. ‘Do you mind? I have no amorous designs on you, don’t worry.’
Before I could confirm that I did not mind, or, for instance, take offence at the absence of amorous designs, she had indeed placed both hands on the crown of my head. From her palms came a soft, calm, polite strength, with which one did not want to argue. ‘This is the ordinary placebo effect,’ I said to myself. ‘Placebo combined with my credulity. I expected to be put to sleep, and so I am falling asleep. Everyone knows that if you expect something, it happ . . . well of course, of cou . . .’

9

I woke when it had grown completely dark, and half-asleep it seemed to me that by some magic I had been moved into a film with futuristic sets.
But it was not magic, of course, and not sets at all: across the whole sky, directly above me, the Milky Way had spread itself out.
‘You can’t see it in the city,’ I whispered. ‘Light pollution.’
‘Well, look at it now, attentively!’ Darya answered, also in a whisper. ‘Look, listen, and be silent.’
I did as I was told.
I do not know how long I lay like that, observing one of the two things that astonished Kant, and at the same time a growing anxiety within me. ‘Anxiety’ is a bad word: the sensation was more like the rumbling of drums, announcing something menacing and very close.
Darya began to speak. It was poetry, unrecognised at the moment. Her voice sounded without any accent, cold, very clear, distinct—and I, as if I had only joyfully been waiting for this, at the sound of her voice felt every hair on my head stand on end.

Not to inhabit the Earth any longer is truly
Strange; to forget what you’ve barely learned, still stranger;
Beautiful roses and other beauties of human
Life to ignore, since they cannot promise you future—
Shuddering, that, and so is dropping the wishes,
Letting them go. To see the self and its cravings
Floating in space is indeed a frightening sight!
Death is quite tiresome and full of laborious efforts,
Slowly making us feel the Eternity. We,
While still alive, are trying too hard to distinguish
Life from Death. Angels, unlike us, would never
Be too certain of which is which. The Eternal
Current forcibly draws all ages through both dimensions,
Making each one forget his age and renew.

Only when she had finished reading did I understand that these lines belonged to Rilke, that I probably even knew them, had read them once—or rather, skimmed them diagonally. This extraneous, unnecessary knowledge did nothing to hinder the horror—again an imprecise word, which I use to designate a new degree of that ‘anxiety’, which had the same relation to everyday anxiety as this horror did to everyday fear, even the strongest. All fifteen lines of inhuman poetry overtook me, and each one with its own lever lifted the lid of my skull—though one would probably have been enough.
‘Kira,’ I said.
‘What are you saying?’ my companion responded.
‘I am saying: I remember!’
‘Well and good—but now, if you have sat up, at least do not get up.’
‘Why?’
‘Just trust me . . .’
She was right: tears began to flow from me, unexpected, superfluous, as though not mine. I could not stop them, did not even try. Darya ran her palm several times along my back: that is probably how one calms a large but frightened animal.
We returned to the house in silence. I made a couple of attempts to begin telling the story—she stopped me. Already inside the house, and turning, the mistress of the workshop said:
‘Unwinding such skeins while the trail is still hot is good, but merciless. Best for you to go home and get a good sleep. Or perhaps I should make you a bed in the chapel?’
‘No, thank you,’ I mumbled: the thought of some chapel, to which one would have to trudge across the field for another six kilometres, filled me with horror—not cosmic horror, but the most ordinary, earthly kind. ‘Home . . . I’ll just sleep for an hour in the car . . .’
There is no need to say that, having climbed into the back seat, I fell into sleep and slept not ‘an hour’ at all, but until dawn.

10

Waking early in the morning (my neck ached), I could have knocked at the ‘doll’s house’ and invited myself to breakfast with its mistress—but instead I moved over to the driver's seat and, trying not to make any noise, set off for home.
I needed to take a shower, brush my teeth, shave, look at my email (letters from clients sometimes arrived at weekends too), but before all that, above all that, I needed to make sense of what had happened, to pause. I was exhausted by this sprinting run across an evening field, by these Ovidian metamorphoses of the mind.
Behind the wheel, one after another, disheveled thoughts came into my head. Below are some of them, with no sequence, logic, or rhyme.
‘Who is she, after all? A self-taught psychologist? And have psychologists long been going about in a paint-spattered apron, feeding wild animals from their hand? A female magus? I have already seen a magus, and she does not much resemble an “ordinary” magus . . . A holy fool, someone “on the verge of foolishness for Christ”? Ah, you blockhead: it is you who are on the verge of foolishness . . . A spiritual leader, a guru? Of what cult, then? An “Orthodox mentor”? Do such people even exist? Well, how do they not: there is Mefodyev, successfully labouring in that role . . . But if both are spiritual teachers, how unlike they are! One does nothing but make the bed soft, and has never once made you lie in it. The other wastes no words, but leads me, as if I were a goat, to her “little hill”, where she immediately stuns me on the head with cosmic horror. Where did she even learn it?’
‘No, no! There are no women mentors in Orthodoxy—well, with rare exceptions of elderly abbesses. She is no abbess, and not even a nun. Is Darya Arkadyevna even Orthodox?’
‘And if she is not, what business is it of mine? Or is it my business? If it is, then why? And if it is not, will I not by such indifference betray my native faith? Oh, my God: I have been in church twice in my life, and there I go—“will I betray my native faith?”! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?’
‘There is too much that is dubious in the story about the Prince—or rather, not dubious, but—theatrical? Girlishly ecstatic? Piercing on the verge of bad taste? But she was seventeen then, not thirty-one . . . And what if it is all a legend for naive neophytes, including the Personal Diary, which was not written at seventeen but composed much later, by a cold, cunning and cynical mind?’
‘But, on the other hand, what a strange legend! It is far easier for a self-appointed guru to trace his “line of transmission” to a Himalayan yogi, a Mahatma of Shambhala, or even to an elder from the Lavra, than to a schoolteacher . . . of literature? There is clearly something Tolstoyan in “Dolly” and “Dolinka”, especially if one remembers that Dolly Oblonskaya was really Darya . . . An incredible legend, fitting into nothing! And precisely by that resembling the truth.’
‘Am I a disciple? If I am already a disciple? And does this lay obligations of obedience on me? Perhaps I will even have to pay a tithe, and make over my property to her? Don’t hold your breath.’
‘Ah, and what a fool you are, Oleg Valeryevich! What sort of disciple are you? Even if you never ring her again, even if you vanish entirely from her life—what is that to her? You will be forgotten the next day. And you will not forget . . . How precisely she spoke of a spring of living water! Living water, you know, one need not drink; no one compels you. There is bottled water, with a label reading “Mefodyev and Co.”—people drink it all their lives, and count themselves happy. But having found the living kind, you will throw everything over and run to the ends of the earth yourself . . . Or you will not run—you will be frightened?’
‘Perhaps it is otherwise? Perhaps I am simply a silly child who has taken cheap fizzy pop of personal charisma for a spring of living water? Can such a thing not happen? Children do not know what is good for them, and in these matters I am precisely a child. From whom could one find out, whom could one ask . . . Who is not a child in these matters? If there are people who are not children in “these matters”, perhaps there are no more than a dozen of them on earth . . .’
I had no answers to my own questions. What I had was a wish to make sense of it all with a sober mind, not to turn into an ecstatic boy in his fortieth year. And—my rationality failed, finding no explanations.

11

Having got home and eaten a modest breakfast, I understood: it was time to sit down and write letters to all my old and new acquaintances, my chance fellow-travellers on the suburban train, my ex-wives—to everyone I had not got round to yesterday. I began with the pleasantest one.

Hello Karlusha!
It is funny to say, but I barely remember you. I really was, a year ago, not in the best state, and I am glad I did not turn out to be an outright boor, and even found a kind word for a stranger.
Your letter touched me and reminded me of myself. True, I was not so sensitive: life at the end of the nineties did not leave much time for sensitivity. Do not envy the fact that you missed them: believe me, that time is not worth regretting.
Your parents, I hope, are not against their not-yet-adult child communicating with some middle-aged man? You can reassure them that the middle-aged man, though dull, is thoroughly comprehensible: he has documents and a place of work. Not much of a place, but worse exist. By the way, would you like to come to Voskhod for work experience? Or is there no such thing in the senior years now?
Today I am busy almost all day. I have an appointment, and I do not yet know whether I will go to it. But even if I go, I hope to be free by eight in the evening. If your wish to meet has not faded, then let us find a bar this evening and knock back a jar each? Or whatever it was you suggested—a walk around the city? Strange but OK, as people of your age say.
My phone number, I think, was on the card I left you; I am duplicating it below. Do not hesitate to call.
I have the same problem as you: I do not know how to sign off. Just my first name? Frivolous. Full surname, first name and patronymic? Very tedious for someone who is sixteen, I believe. So I sign myself:

Uncle Oleg

Yes, not the cleverest signature, but I could not think of anything else.
Forgive me too, if anything is not right. The young are vulnerable, and people of our age are cynical. If I have accidentally offended you, or do offend you, then believe me, it is not out of malice. I am not a brilliant conversationalist, and on the whole, probably, an ordinary grey philistine. In my greyness, a few colours have appeared in recent days, but they are not my doing. There, I have warned you honestly, so think a hundred times before calling back.

There—a reply that mirrored, as it were, my correspondent’s letter—deliberately careless, but believe me, sufficiently considered. I would probably not have written a letter to this tenth-grader at all; in any case, I would have limited myself to one polite phrase, if not for Darya Arkadyevna. To appear before her again and say that I had, so to speak, packed the boy off home, refused the role of entertainer of the masses, would have been shameful: look at her, she feeds even hedgehogs, soulless little beasts, on carrot tops, and I grudged the time of my life for a whole living human being . . . The letter to Karlusha did not, it is true, resolve the question of whether I wanted to see Darya at all. But one should not try to deal with all one’s affairs in one go! That applies to personal affairs too.

12

Having finished with that, I sat down to the letter to Kristina. Strictly speaking, I might have written nothing to her at all, but without a letter my departure on Saturday became—well, or it seemed to me that it became—simply a hooligan act. I do not like being a hooligan: even at school I never took part in any of the nasty tricks, which earned me the nickname of Bore.

Kristina!
My fairy tale probably looks like rudeness. I beg your pardon for it. But if I beg it, I do so not very sincerely, out of simple politeness. In the end, You left first—two years ago . . .
Please understand that this letter is not a reproach, not a way of settling scores, not a form of petty revenge. We parted voluntarily; we are strangers to one another.
Or do You not want us to be strangers to one another?
Or do You want it after all, and has the ‘peacemaking’ of Your spiritual father fallen on You too out of the blue?
If the first is true, this is something to be talked about, and talked about by the two of us, without outsiders, even if they are the best spiritual fathers and mothers in the world. In the end, one does not take either mother or father on a date with a girl. Everything will have to be built from the very beginning. What is not a problem in a stranger may be a vast defect in someone close.
I will not be able to keep up correspondence in messengers. I have fallen out of the habit of social networks, and I do not regret it. I am not altogether well, though I have already begun to recover, and I ask You to take this into account.
I will be glad of Your call.

Oleg

This letter I had to send precisely through a ‘messenger’, an app for exchanging messages in one of the social media. Immediately afterwards I changed the settings of my profile in such a way that Kristina could not write to me. I must confess that I cannot stand dialogue in ‘messengers’! Some dubious entertainment for fools: it has nothing of the merits of proper, long letters, and nothing of the advantages of even a telephone conversation, still less a living one. It is surprising and pleasant that ‘Karlusha’ wrote me precisely a real, substantial letter. And I, for my ex-wife, did not have the strength for a substantial letter, but even such a one as this came hard. Over one opening I sat for perhaps twenty minutes, shuffling different variants, among which were also ‘Kristinochka’ (but it was beyond my strength to match such a loving, all-forgiving tone), ‘Kristina Viktorovna’ (too cool, too reminiscent of my profession), ‘Dear Kristina’ (the Dear of a bank manager, which commits to nothing, and as though containing some hint—not only offensive but also unjust), ‘Hello Kristina’ (in which, perhaps on no basis, I sensed the sugary manner of a variety performer: ‘Just hello, just how are things . . . Weep and look . . .’—away with you, away). No, the simple name with an exclamation mark was best of all, though in general every sentence presented a difficulty: now it seemed to me that I was too critical, unmerciful, unkind; now, on the contrary, it seemed that I was surrendering my positions too quickly. Already having pressed ‘Send’, I almost regretted it—but sending it was, of course, still worthwhile: such a specimen of laboured prose should not go to waste.

13

The torments, however, did not end there. The hardest was still to come.
Long or short—I even managed to have lunch in the meantime—the following text came into the world.

Dear Darya Arkadyevna,
Forgive me for not saying goodbye to You in the morning: there turned out to be much to do, and little strength.
Kira, whom I remembered yesterday (thank You for that), was a fellow student of mine: I studied with her in the same group until the end of the fourth year, when she died tragically under unexplained circumstances: she left someone else’s birthday party, and never came home.
I maintained a friendly, even relationship with her, which in the last days of our acquaintance became, perhaps, somewhat more friendly than usual (at her initiative). This continued until the moment she committed a bad act, or in any case a not entirely worthy one, which provoked general condemnation. It turned out that it was precisely I whom the group chose to convey to her the collective assessment of her act—which coincided entirely with my own assessment, otherwise I would, of course, have refused the errand.
Be that as it may, I could probably have found other words . . . To this day I have not sorted out that story, or my role in it, to the end. I do not even know whether it matters. If it matters, why did I forget it, and for many years could not remember?
This is not the only question I would like to ask You. But . . . should I ask these questions? Do You want to hear them and answer them? I am embarrassed to be taking up Your time. Now, when I have—with Your help—dug down to this youthful trauma, or whatever the psychologists would call it, I am presumably capable of dealing with it myself.
Or is it better after all for me to see You? But in what capacity? Who am I, in fact, to You, and who are You, in fact, to me? I ask this with humour, but also quite seriously. I hope my tone contains no reproach. I am very far from wishing to reproach—I am merely trying to make sense of things. Forgive me, an ordinary man without Your talents, abilities, and revelations, for trying to do this as best I can.
I do not like what I have written, but even in a couple of hours I am unlikely to do better with this difficult challenge, and my certainty that I ought to write to You at all is diminishing by the hour, so, while it has not vanished entirely, I am sending this ‘as is’. You have every right not to answer this message, if it seems to You inappropriate, absurd, offensive, etc. If that happens, I say to You in advance ‘farewell’ and ‘thank you’.
With respect and gratitude,

Oleg Pozdeyev

14

Around four, driven to the last degree of impatience, I could not bear it and dialled her number.
‘I am very glad you called, Oleg,’ my new acquaintance said into the receiver, disregarding the usual norms of politeness observed by people living in society, going straight to the point: this both slightly irritated and delighted me. ‘I have read your letter, but I had no time to reply. And even now, to be honest, I have none: I have guests . . .’
‘Forgive me, for God’s sake!’ I was immediately ashamed and repentant. ‘I have called at a bad time.’
‘No, no, don't hang up! And best of all—come over.’
‘That is inconvenient . . .’
‘What a thing to say—it is perfectly convenient! And, more than that, I will be grateful to you.’
‘You are . . . in danger?’ I supposed.
‘No, no, what are you . . .’ Darya answered as if not very confidently. ‘But come anyway! And, if you can, don’t be too long.’
It goes without saying that I took this request into execution and hurried to the rescue!

15

There seemed to be no direct danger to the mistress of the house. In the now well-familiar kitchen, a young dark-haired bearded man with oily eyes rose from the table and greeted me with a handshake. Good-looking, in fact, though I of course know nothing about male beauty. There seemed to be something of the Indian about him.
‘Ava,’ said the ‘Indian’.
‘Er . . .’ was all I managed to squeeze out.
‘His name is Ava,’ Darya explained to me, smiling with her eyes alone. ‘His full name is Avrely, but he prefers “Ava”. He also answers to “Abel”.’
I gave my name and patronymic, to which ‘Ava’ joyfully clarified in a pleasant velvety voice:
‘Surely one may simply say “Oleg”?’
I mumbled something vaguely affirmative.
We settled at the table, on either side of it. The hostess sat at the end of the table on a stool.
‘The tea has gone cold,’ she explained apologetically, ‘and I did not have time to make fresh. I have not had a free minute! He has talked me to death with his talk!’
‘Yes, yes!’ Ava confirmed readily. ‘It is always such a great pleasure to have a spiritual conversation! It is the most important thing there can be in life! Darya Arkadyevna is a fountain, a fountain of wisdom!'
I still could not work out what was elusively scratching at me in his voice—and then I understood: he spoke with the same cloying intonations, stretching out individual vowels, especially the ‘a’, and stressing individual words, with which young and, alas, not very bright girls speak nowadays. I had almost remarked on it aloud—but restrained myself in time. It would have been a monstrous piece of tactlessness on my part, and besides, what business was it of mine? But still, why did Darya Arkadyevna not explain to her spiritual pupil how absurd he looked? Again I felt the rising irritation.
‘Do you know that I sometimes call her Shri Dari?’ Avreliy continued.
‘From which language is that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it is Sanskrit! It seems to me I was born in India in a past life . . . And she will not confirm that I was born there! She only laughs . . . Shri means “venerable”. Have you not studied Sanskrit? I must confess I have not either, but the language simply enchants me. I can listen to it for hours!’
‘And what does “Dari” mean in Sanskrit?’
‘“Dari”?’ Avreliy was taken aback. ‘Probably something like “Eye of the Dawn”, or “Revelation”, or “Truth” . . .’
‘If you are not sure, let us look in a dictionary,’ I suggested. ‘There are Sanskrit–Russian dictionaries online, after all!’ and I reached for my mobile.
‘Drink your tea!’ Darya said sternly to me. ‘And do not confuse my guests. I am not interested in what my name means in Sanskrit. Let it be “Eye of the Dawn”. Do you begrudge me that?’
‘And in general!’ Avrely added, edifyingly. ‘One must trust intuition, and not all sorts of cold machines. Oleg, do you not agree?’
No, this really was some sort of cult! What was I doing here?
‘I am planning a trip to India,’ Avrely continued meanwhile. ‘When I earn enough money. So far it is not working out . . . But I think one could also go hitchhiking. It would be a very significant spiritual experience. Though Darya Arkadyevna maintains that it does not matter where we are! A very deep thought, very . . . What matters is the joy, the happiness, that we experience every second and give to other people. Sometimes I feel so much happiness that I am even ashamed before other people: why am I so happy? You, for instance, are not very happy: I can see it . . . I would like to give “lessons in happiness”. I think I could. Less egoism! And there will be more happiness. A person is like a vessel. If it fills with egoism, there is no room in it for happiness. If it fills with happiness, there is no room in it for egoism.’
‘What about egoistic happiness?’ I enquired, at the same time recalling The Adolescents in the Universe and the robots who wanted to make their captives happy by force.
‘Egoistic happiness?’ Avrely repeated. ‘It is not real, not genuine. After all, “when you are happy yourself, share your happiness with another”! Alla Pugacheva sang about that, and I must confess to you that in some of her songs a great quantity of spiritual truths is concealed. I could teach people happiness! I have only two problems. The first is premises: no one will give me premises for free. I went to the Palace of Youth, and they would not give me any. I do not understand why! Surely they would want young people to be happy!’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea . . .’
‘By the way, Oleg, where do you work? Perhaps there might be premises at your work? I need literally an hour a week.’
‘My superiors are very strict, and I am afraid they would not approve of the idea.’
‘What a pity, what a pity!’ Ava was genuinely grieved. ‘How is it that people do not understand what is most important in life . . .’
‘And your second problem?’ I hurried to ask, to lead the happy man away from dark thoughts.
‘My second problem is here!’ He stretched out his hand towards the hostess. ‘Shri Dari will not give me her blessing to teach others. I do not understand why! Talk to her, Oleg!’
‘I will certainly talk to her,’ the author of these lines replied. ‘Only I cannot promise that . . .’
‘But do try!’
‘I must confess, that is just why I—’
‘—Oleg came precisely in order to talk with me,’ Darya interrupted. ‘And it is an important conversation, Abel. It cannot be conducted with three of us.’
‘Oh!’ Avrely exclaimed, quite childishly. ‘I understand! You want, you are hinting to me, that I should leave. I understand!’ He rose and held out his hand to me in farewell. ‘But you will talk to her? You will ring me afterwards? You will tell me what it is about?’
‘I do not have your phone number, Avrely,’ I tried to evade the execution of this dubious request.
‘Simply Ava—for those close to me, always Ava, at the very least Abel . . . She will give it to you, she certainly will! You are a very interesting person, Oleg! We might have known each other in one of our past lives. And for now, farewell! I bow to you!’ he did indeed bow to me, folding his hands at his heart. ‘Namaste!’

16

The door closed, and after a while we heard the click of the gate closing.
‘If you had rung me earlier, I would have come earlier and saved you,’ I muttered.
‘He tired me out today,’ the hostess admitted. ‘But in general he is a very good, pure person.’
‘He’s a fool!’ I blurted out, unable to restrain myself any longer.
‘Yes, he’s a fool!’ Darya sighed. ‘Unfortunately . . . It is hard to have more than one talent. And you, Oleg, are sometimes too clever.’
‘So you see that he is a fool!’ I was delighted. ‘You see what sort of people surround you! By the way, are all your “spiritual children” like him? Or is he your only disciple?’
‘No, not the only one—there are three more: a very young girl, a forty-year-old woman, a pensioner. All different . . . And so you are squeamish about being among such . . . not very bright people? Who even pronounce the sound “a” in a certain way—’
‘—As though they were the female of the human species with duck lips,’ I finished for her. ‘Forgive me. No, it is not a matter of squeamishness—’
‘I have an accent myself!’
‘—And it is not the accent—but this is precisely what I wanted to ask you about, that is, not about your accent, of course, which, incidentally, you do not have at all . . . Darya Arkadyevna, who am I to you? And who are you yourself?’
‘There we go, here you start again,’ she frowned. ‘Could you not have done without this . . .’
‘I start again, and I will go on, and I will not stop until I have answers! Forgive me generously for not being able to be as unassuming as your Avrely!’
‘What you have just said does not do you credit either . . . Who am I? A simple Russian woman. A private craftswoman who makes trinkets.’
‘That is not true—you are not a “simple Russian woman”, and you know it no less than I do!’
‘I do not know! I do not know, as God is my witness! Don’t, Oleg Valeryevich, don’t try to plant the seeds of ambition in my head! Don’t drag me into your vulgar games!’
‘Very well, remain a “simple Russian woman” if that is what you wish! Then answer me, please: who am I to you?’
‘Who are you to me?’ She suddenly calmed. ‘No one at all! A chance acquaintance.’
‘Really?’ I felt both relief and emptiness. Curiously made is Man! Was that not what I had wanted, was that not what I had been preparing to fight for—my freedom—when I came here? ‘And is Abel a chance acquaintance to you too?’
‘Well, no: he considers himself a disciple, and me, Shri Dari, you heard it yourself,’ ‘Shri Dari’ needled me. ‘What a person considers himself to be, that is what he is.’
‘Always?’
‘Often.’
‘If all that is what it takes to be your disciple, then, you know, I would rather stand aside,’ I muttered.
‘No, it doesn't take that—but stand aside as long as you like, no one is stopping you.’
‘Thank you . . . So should I now get up and leave?’
‘I am not driving you out.’
‘You are not driving me out—but you are not very glad to see me either?’
‘Stop behaving like a child!’ Darya suddenly raised her voice at me. ‘Or I really will drive you out!’
And she went out into the workroom, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

17

Returning five minutes later, she found me quiet and subdued. God knows I needed those five minutes. In them I thought over a great deal . . .
‘There, there,’ the hostess murmured pacifyingly. ‘You are guilty and want to apologise.’ I nodded penitently. 'Quite clear. Let us drop it. You have satisfied yourself that no one is keeping you on a leash: you may leave this very moment. “Lord said to Eve, / ‘Now, you may leave.’ ” And while you have not left—you have not decided to, no?—while you have not left, I would like, Oleg Valeryevich, to question you about that acquaintance of yours who died so long ago. You do not mind? Well and good. But I want to warn you: when I question you, I will do it seriously, not the way one questions a “chance acquaintance”. I do not know how to do it any other way. Are you ready?’
‘Ready,’ I added with a smirk: ‘You stated the terms, and I have signed on the dotted line, as we say in the trade.’
‘Very glad that you . . . signed something or other. Tell me!’
‘Kira Yevstafyeva and I studied in the law faculty of the state university,’ I began my account. ‘She was always a girl a little not of this world . . .’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Why?’ I was taken aback. ‘Well, you see, for no reason at all: I cannot, honestly, recall any particular oddities about her. It is simply that everyone considered her so . . .’
‘And you, it follows, repeated after everyone.’
‘And I, it follows, repeated,’ I agreed.
‘And even now, almost twenty years later, you are repeating after other people . . . Describe her!’
‘I find it difficult even to describe her, Darya Arkadyevna: what sort of portraitist am I! And what is there to say about her? Eyes slightly slanting, nose slightly bridged, teeth slightly chipped—look, I have even got it into something resembling a rhyme . . .’
‘Did that spoil her badly?’
‘Not in the least—it only added some charm. A beautiful girl, tall, slender . . .’
‘So the slant and the bridge were again repeated after her envious girlfriends—is that so?’
‘Perhaps they were . . . You seem unfavourably disposed towards me!’
‘I am not disposed towards you in any way! I simply want to get to the truth.’
‘You know, she was actually a little like my ex-wife!’ I suddenly admitted to myself. ‘Or my wife was like her . . .’
‘Very interesting! So you picked a wife to resemble her . . .’
‘I did not pick!’
‘. . . And named your daughter after her . . .’
‘I did not name her!’
‘And even if you did, what is it to me? I am not a psychologist; I have no time to solve these riddles. How did you feel about Kira?’
‘Nothing in particular, really! As a fellow student, one of—that is, until the end of the fourth year. I was afraid to get close: she was too . . .’
‘Too what?’
‘Strong-willed, unpredictable. Kira never had to search for a word; she said straight out what she thought, she could pull something quite out of the ordinary. In the end she did, you know. And what about me? I am a simple man, I was one and I remain one. Why would I need extra difficulties in dealing with a girl?’
‘Self-abasement is worse than pride, Oleg Valeryevich, so do not pretend, it does not suit you.’
‘I am taking my example from you, Darya Arkadyevna, from whom else . . .’
‘Taking his example from me, just think of it . . . What happened at the end of the fourth year?’
‘What happened was that Kira began to show me signs of attention. Unobtrusively, childishly, not the way girls her age do it. Now she would bring me a pastry from the canteen, now she would, as if by chance, run into me after classes and suggest, “Let’s go for a walk! The weather is good, what else is there to do?” ’
‘And did you walk?’
‘Yes, that is, quite innocently—I do not even remember, imagine, whether we held hands. That is, perhaps we did, but it is not remembered . . .’
‘How did you feel about this growing closeness?’
‘It suited me entirely.’
‘Well, of course—a pretty girl, and she swims into your hands herself . . . But you did not hurry events.’
‘I didn't,’ I agreed.
‘Why?’
‘And should I have?’
‘No, I simply want to understand.’
‘Well, you see, someone put about a rumour that Kira had supposedly recently broken up, or was still in the process of breaking up, with her boyfriend, and I assumed that she saw me either as a way of taking revenge, or as a reserve airfield. Who enjoys being merely a reserve airfield? That is why I waited.’
‘Very reasonable . . . And did you not have a tongue, Oleg Valeryevich, to ask her yourself? A tongue is an organ, it is located in the mouth. It is used for communication between people.’
‘You are cruel, Darya Arkadyevna, and you are unjust,’ I complained. ‘Why is it that you defend her and do not pity me?’
‘Indeed, why . . . Perhaps because you are still alive and she is not? And I will pity you too, there is time. What did your Kira do that so outraged the whole group?’
‘That is precisely what I am coming to! In our group there studied an “anarcho-pacifist”, by his own definition. A legendary figure! His name was Alexander Nazarov. Sasha went about in a long greatcoat with curls to his shoulders, like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Only a beard was missing . . .’
‘Only a beard short of Christ? Well, well . . .’
‘No, not only, but do not comment on every little thing! It is hard enough as it is . . . Nazarov was, I do not remember now why, sharply opposed to the current president, who had just then been elected to a second term. Sasha made very energetic anti-government speeches in the student discussion club—there was one at the faculty then, under the leadership of Alexei Ilyich Berdichev, a postgraduate of the philosophy department, and what did we not say there in our youth! I think the university administration would not allow that now: the times have changed . . . When even that seemed too little to him, Sasha began to print leaflets at his own expense—tiny, smaller than a palm—and scatter them about the faculties of the university.’
‘What was in these leaflets?’
‘How can one recall now? The usual youthful nonsense: “Vote with a cobblestone!” or “We Don’t Wanna Put In”—Putin, that is. Also, “Kill an official before an official kills you!”, “Quo vadis, Russia?” and so on. “Kill an official”, I remember, was accompanied by an asterisk and a footnote: “in yourself”, so that extremism could not be pinned on the author. Why are you looking at me so sternly, Darya Arkadyevna, without any smile? I, recalling it, smile: young years! Such things were not left without attention even then, and one fine day a “man in plain clothes” appeared at the university. A lecture room was cleared for him, and all day senior students were summoned to that room “for a talk”. Everyone, of course, kept silent as a fish! But someone did give Sashka away, and Nazarov was taken straight from that talk to our local FSB directorate. They gave him a talking-to there and let him go—they treated him with surprising humanity. He returned, of course, a hero and the darling of the girls, but he gave up the leaflets from then on.
‘And, imagine, someone put about a rumour that it was precisely Kira who had informed on Nazarov! They mustered the courage and asked her directly, and she immediately confessed. Imagine the degree of audacity!’
‘Audacity?’ Darya looked at me frowning, from under her brows.
‘An unfortunate word: defiance!’
‘Defiance?’
‘Yes, defiance: to declare openly to everyone and each one that it was she who had committed, pardon me, such an act!’
‘That is, you are still convinced that it was precisely a bad act?’
I was dumbfounded. I think I even opened my mouth. I stammered something:
‘But how . . . One’s own comrade . . .’
‘And was he really a true comrade to her? The sort who would go through fire and water for you? Or did you not leave her any choice whether or not to consider this long-haired friend a comrade? And when this “comrade” proposed killing people, was she also supposed to keep quiet?’
‘But, Darya Arkadyevna, that is not the same thing . . .’
‘No, Oleg Valeryevich, it is precisely the same thing! Today your handsome darling of the girls writes, “Vote with a cobblestone!”, tomorrow someone picks up a cobblestone—and in the heat of the struggle touches, wounds, kills your child. And you still consider that Kira acted badly? You are forty years old!’
‘Thirty-nine . . .’
‘And you still think that a twenty-year-old blockhead scattering leaflets calling for “Kill an official!” is daring, pluck, and heroism, and that reporting this blockhead to the state is baseness and shame? How do you, with such beliefs, seriously, seriously go to your work, sit in a chair with an important face, expound the laws of the state to people, receive money, and are not ashamed to do all of it?!’
‘Darya Arkadyevna, Darya Arkadyevna!’ I implored. ‘I am not justifying Nazarov—or rather, this recollection seemed to have frozen into my memory, and now it has thawed, and I see that it smells, indeed, not very good . . . But you were young yourself, you committed daring, rebellious acts yourself, trampling on social proprieties, you must understand . . .’
‘Nothing of the kind, excuse me, did I commit! And do you know who really “trampled on social proprieties” then and showed true courage? Kira! And not at all your . . . beardless Yeshua Ha-Nozri from Bulgakov!’
We both fell silent. ‘Look how angry she has become,’ I was almost vindictively saying to myself. ‘She has lost all her composure. What sort of spiritual teacher is she?’ Alas, even to me these reproaches did not seem particularly convincing.

18

‘Shall I continue?’ I asked in a faltering voice.
‘Yes, please . . . Forgive me for shouting at you.’
‘What of it . . . Kira really did not understand what was bad . . . And judging by your belligerent defence, perhaps there was nothing bad . . . I am confused! But that the group condemned her—that she did not understand, of course! Not that anyone took a formal decision to boycott her; it was simply that everyone withdrew from her. . .’
‘And you too?’
‘I cannot now recall . . . I probably found one pretext or another to see her less often, especially since we were not, strictly speaking, a couple—just an “early stage”, and not even an early stage, but a ridiculous half-childish courtship without any consequences, that is, courtship only on her side . . . At the end of June we sat the last examination of the summer session, which coincided with Vovka’s birthday. A grand carousal was planned. Vovka’s parents turned out to be understanding, and, to give the young people freedom, went off to the dacha. I was invited, of course; Kira, of course, was not—’
‘Naturally!’
‘—but she found out from someone and came anyway. Then this unspoken boycott became especially noticeable. To look at her, alone amid the general merriment, was especially unpleasant and sad.
The more active of the lads gathered in the kitchen and made a decision: someone ought to tell her that she was not welcome here, and especially why she was not welcome. The choice fell on me, chiefly because of our walks, which were already becoming noticeable—more than that, some had begun to make fun of them . . .’
‘It only seemed so to you.’
‘N-no, not only seemed, because . . . Though perhaps you are right to believe that. What a funny word, believe, as if it were a bee that wanted to leave . . .  Sorry, I am talking nonsense. Kira and I withdrew to the balcony, and I explained everything to her. I remember how her large, slightly slanting eyes kept opening and opening, as though what I was saying had become some sort of revelation to her . . .’
‘And what if it did become one?’
‘I cannot say, but what a degree of naivety one would need to—’
‘—And what a degree of callousness, to say all this to a girl who loves you!’
‘About “loves” you have probably exaggerated.’
‘Kira, of course, asked you how you yourself felt about her act, did she not?’ Darya continued to interrogate me. ‘And you did not scruple to “state your assessment”—that is how you wrote it to me?’
‘All true—but in my defence let me say that I offered to see her home. The girl refused. Kira went out . . .’
‘Then you should have insisted, blockhead!’
‘Dorothea Arkadyevna, I protest! Such expressions, from you of all people . . . We have not, after all, drunk to brotherhood . . . Kira, I repeat, went out at about half past ten. She never came home. She disappeared without a trace. The body was never found, so sometimes I hope that . . .’
Darya stood up—all this time she had been sitting at the table—and crossed her arms over her breast. It was quite unlike her gesture—and therefore especially frightening, especially terrible.
‘You killed her, Oleg Valeryevich,’ she announced. ‘The whole group is guilty, but do not shift it onto them. You do not care about them. You killed her. And instead of repentance you hid the memory of what you did in a dark pantry, on a far shelf. The lives of the unrepentant rarely turn out happily. And so their children are not born, and, having been born, do not live long.’
‘You want to say that Mira . . . that is why?’ I asked quietly, with whitened lips.
‘Jesus said to him: thou hast said.’
‘Oh, you love that Gospel phrase, I have already noticed . . .’

19

This time the silence lasted much longer, and we must have made a picturesque pair. One might have painted an illustration of us and reproduced it for instructive purposes for the senior classes of Sunday school.
Darya sighed at last, came over to me, and laid her hand on my shoulder. I raised my eyes to her from my hunched position. She was smiling faintly. She spoke:
‘God be with you, Oleg Valeryevich! I am not your prosecutor. Enough of tormenting yourself!’
‘But what am I to do, Dorothea Arkadyevna!’ I groaned. ‘Mefodyev, for instance, advises penitential prayer. What do you think, should I try it?’
‘About prayer—I do not know,’ she returned to her place and sat down. ‘There is no harm in it, but you will not manage it, being unaccustomed. No—I, in your place, would confess to a murder.’
‘Publicly? In the square?’
‘Why in the square, what square? They say three people are enough. You have already told me today. Find two more.’
‘And then God will “send me life”, as Sonechka said?’ I remembered where exactly that expression came from.
‘What Sonechka, from Crime and Punishment? I do not know!’ Darya spread her hands. ‘First, I am not Sonechka, so please do not compare me with her. I am different. And whether God will send you life or not, I will not say either. I am not God! And I am not on especially close terms with Him.’
‘I know, I know—you are “a simple Russian woman, a craftswoman who makes trinkets”,’ I smirked.
‘Precisely,’ Darya confirmed. 'When I die and am buried, that is exactly what should be written on my little grave. Or no—something still more modest. I will appoint you my executor.’
‘Thank you for the honour, I am most flattered . . . Darya Arkadyevna!’ An idea, a hope, flashed like lightning. ‘I will confess to two people, without fail, but I have a request to make. A wild one, incongruous with everything, indecent, which you will evidently refuse, and you will be right to refuse, but . . . could I in some way speak with the deceased?’
‘There—and why ask me? I do not do spiritualism. Go to your sorceress!’
‘No, not spiritualism!’ I hurried to explain. ‘Yesterday I witnessed your ability to move another’s consciousness into a special state. If you can do that, can you really not move a man’s mind into those worlds where the souls of the dead dwell? I saw it in a film . . .’
‘You should watch fewer films, Oleg Valeryevich!’ the hostess chided me gently, and fell to thinking.
While she thought, I had time to regret my request. How had it even entered my head?
‘I have never done such a thing,’ Darya said at last. ‘But to try is even interesting. Oh, and one day I will catch it for all this . . . However, I shall have conditions.’
‘I am all attention!’
‘First: tell no one about this until my death. After my death—as much as you like. Second: do not be angry with Abel, even though he is a little fool! And in general, try not to be angry with people. Third: try to make peace with Kristina. At least make the attempt, all right?’
‘How strange that your advice repeats Mefodyev's advice!’ I noted with surprise.
‘Why strange? I am not an enemy of the Church, like your . . . sorceress. Are the conditions within your strength? Do you accept them?’
‘I accept,’ I sighed.
‘Then let us go!’
‘To the little hill again?’ I asked in a fallen voice.
‘Why the little hill?’ The hostess took something like a poker, deftly inserted this poker into a barely visible keyhole in the ceiling, turned it, pulled a hatch towards herself, and unfolded the folding attic ladder attached to it. ‘To the chapel! Please do not forget to take off your shoes on the ground floor.’

20

The whole of the attic space had been set aside for the ‘chapel’. Severe white walls with portraits of women on them (I counted six, three on each wall). All the faces seemed vaguely familiar, but I could not name a single one with certainty. No furniture except a small table. A shaggy carpet on the floor. Two little windows, through one of which the setting sun illuminated the ‘chapel’ with slanting rays.
‘This is my maiden’s light-room, svetyolka, where I admit only very close people,’ the hostess explained, sitting down on the floor in a pose resembling a Southern Buddhist one, and gesturing for me to sit beside her. ‘Do be so good, Oleg Valeryevich, as not to tell anyone about it while I am alive!’
‘I understand—your sacred space,’ I guessed. ‘Do not worry, I will not tell. How is it that you admit a “chance acquaintance” into your sanctuary?’
‘It follows that you are not quite a chance one . . . Do not worry,’ I was comforted. ‘Your memory is like a little fish’s: you forget everything that does not suit you, and my light-room, if you do not change, you will forget too . . .’
‘Do you perform some sort of rituals here?’
‘What are you thinking—am I a priestess, to perform rituals? This is a personal little room, for the soul, and the soul has no need of rituals. Just . . . I pray while no one sees. I light a little candle sometimes . . .’
And indeed: on the low table stood candles in a homemade clay stand.
‘Darya Arkadyevna!’ I made up my mind. ‘Will you allow me to ask you a question that has been tormenting me since this morning?’
‘And why not?’
‘Are you Orthodox?’
‘Are you really tormenting yourself with that?’ Darya laughed quietly. And she fell to thinking, withdrew into herself. ‘I do not know!’ she admitted at last. ‘I have never been anything else, and whether I am Orthodox now—I do not know, as God is my witness. And . . . does it matter?’
‘How do you mean?’ I was taken aback.
‘Just so! Does it matter? And if it matters, why?’
I could not find what to answer. A thousand reasons I could have given for why people define their belonging to one religion or another, or to one of its branches, and why this might matter. But here, in the silence of the home chapel, it was pointless to give them: my companion was not asking me about that. ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright / In the forest of the night! / What immortal hand or eye / Could make thy fearful symmetry?’—‘It was made by evolution and the struggle for existence, Mr Blake!’ That, or approximately that, was the shape of every answer I was capable of giving her.
‘You are a man, Oleg Valeryevich,’ Darya added, taking pity on my confusion, ‘and also a lawyer, a legalist, an educated person. So it’s you who should answer the question: who am I, into what category am I to be placed? As for myself, I do not care!’
‘Are you really giving me such an errand?’ I said with doubt.
‘I am not giving it—you have taken it on yourself, and now, until you fulfil it, you will not be at peace. Lie on the floor and close your eyes! I will sit at your head, as yesterday.’
The thought that now, in just a couple of minutes, I might see ‘the one I had killed’ suddenly filled me with such agitation, even fear, that I was irresistibly overcome by sleepiness. I did not track how much time passed between her last words and my sleep. Time stopped being, as this world stopped being, and a quite different one began.

21

I am in a green meadow. (I do not know what makes me write these lines in the present tense. There is no trace of our time here, and the time there is here does not need our grammatical categories.) The colours of the meadow and the sky are tender, as though painted in watercolour. The paper shows through the watercolour—and here too, in this world, the underpainting of things shows through things.
The sun is sensed, but the sky is covered with a haze.
A warm rain begins to fall. The large drops are almost weightless: touching the earth, they scatter into fine spray.
From the soil, answering the rain, flowers of the most fantastic shapes stretch up. The flowers open, turning into animals.
Here are cats, dogs, African grey parrots. Here too are former plush beasts: Cheburashkas, little bears, lion cubs, piglets, lambs.
Before me, almost from the ground itself, a large bud grows and opens.
In the bud is Kara, almost as I remembered her. Though no: imperceptible changes have taken place in her. The eyes have changed shape; now they are purely human eyes (in another place such eyes would look, perhaps, uncanny, but I know that in this world no harm will come to me). On Kara’s head is a small golden diadem.
‘I am so glad to see you,’ I say, confused, the first thing that comes into my head.
‘And I am glad,’ my ‘furry sister’ answers me.
‘How well you speak Russian . . .’
‘It is not I who speak Russian well, dear and foolish man! It is you who now understands me . . .’
‘Kara,’ I hurry to say something important, ‘I am guilty before you. I never even said goodbye to you!’
‘Well, then,’ she observes with the equanimity characteristic of her on earth too, ‘at least now you have found the time. Thank you for visiting me! It is pleasant for me. I shall probably be born a human soon, you know?’
‘Welcome to our world!’ I again find not the cleverest words. ‘It is unclear, of course, whether you will like the world of men, it is very so-so. Forgive us, we have not managed to make it better.’
We understand that the time has come to say goodbye again. Kara, playfully, in memory of childhood, gives me her paw. This paw is hard to distinguish from a human hand.
I, bending, just as playfully kiss her hand.

 
22

My eyes on returning were full of senseless tears.
‘Hush, hush,’ I heard Darya’s voice. ‘Here is a handkerchief . . . Let us go downstairs.’
We went down to the ground floor and rested for a while on either side of the table. Darya Arkadyevna was paler than usual, and I remarked aloud:
‘It must be . . . tiring for you to do that?’
She made a silent movement of her head, either denying it or, on the contrary, agreeing.
‘How do you manage it?’ I went on asking.
‘By guesswork, all by guesswork, like a centipede that walks, but if you ask it how it walks, it will fall over at once. You know, I have a feeling before I begin, whether there will be strength enough or not. It is rather like waves: they roll in, they recede. That is why I did not put it off for long: I caught the wave. Actually, Oleg Valeryevich, it is not very good: we are doing foolish things, we are violating the normal course of things, we are climbing into unboarded vents at the risk of our health . . .’
‘I am to blame, forgive me!’
‘You are not to blame: I agreed freely . . . What?’ She glanced at me merrily. ‘Did I make a mistake by one letter? I simply remembered your Kara in every detail while I was cutting her out; but where your girl is, I cannot even imagine.’
‘Well, you did not technically deceive me: you promised a meeting with the deceased . . .’ I joked. ‘And will she really soon become a human? She will not like it here . . .’
‘Yes,’ Darya agreed. ‘The world has quite gone out of its mind.’
‘As to people like you,’ I continued, ‘one wants to ask them: why do you, with your gifts, hide from the world, instead of trying to fix it?’
‘Here we go again: what does “like me” mean, with what “gifts”?’ Darya frowned. ‘The world is not a torn sock, to be taken up and darned. Here, try it yourself! And it is not a matter of “gifts”: “gifts” are just a cartoon for forty-year-old children. Here we bite them out with our teeth, and in the next world they come free. And was it worth it?’
‘What is it a matter of, then, Dorothea Arkadyevna?’ I asked impatiently. ‘What is important?’
‘I am not your teacher, and I am no one’s teacher, so how am I to say what is important?’
‘Not even Abel’s?’
‘Oh, enough . . . What is important? A feeling of ringing freedom inside,’ she pronounced with expression. ‘That is where “gifts” begin, and everything else too. Not the freedom the world speaks of! The world shamelessly lies to our face every second, telling us that we are already free. The earthworm is told that he is a king cobra, and he believes it. The fish have already arrived, for whom he will go as food, and still he believes, the little fool . . .’
‘Why is freedom “ringing”?’
‘Because it must be made unto the ringing, unto readiness to die at any hour. Everything begins from it.’
‘Is this part of the instructions you received from the Prince?’ I realised.
‘Yes, and not only this . . .’
‘What an extraordinary man he must have been!’
‘For you, he was,’ Darya confirmed. ‘For me, he was and is. When I think of him, I do not think in the past tense.’

23

As if rhyming with the words about ringing freedom, my telephone gave a short ring: a text message.
‘Karlusha is asking whether I still want to meet,’ I explained. ‘I will switch it off . . .’
‘Please don’t!’ the mistress of the house asked. ‘I have tired both you and myself. Karlusha—that is the boy who wrote you a letter? Go, spend time with him, talk to the young while they come to you of themselves.’
‘I say “goodbye”, Darya Arkadyevna, but I hope not forever?’
‘No, not forever: nothing lasts forever. What is this, Oleg Valeryevich—have you taken it into your head to kiss my hand? Kiss your own dog’s! I am a simple woman. No, no, I am not angry with you, only I will not see you to the door, all right? I am tired, I cannot stand on my feet . . .’

*

From the monument to the poet-democrat, by which we had agreed to meet, a dark little figure detached itself. Taking my example from Darya Arkadyevna, I shook the stranger’s hand with a weak movement. The palm of my new acquaintance was thin and white, and the face was as thin and as white. A short haircut, a baggy black raincoat one size too large. The lad was imitating somebody, was ‘cosplaying’ someone, as the young people say—but whom, I could not work out. And I had no leisure, a thirty-nine-year-old bloke that I was, to sort out subcultures, youth idols and style icons!
‘Uncle Oleg?’
‘The very one,’ I confirmed. ‘You are Karlusha? Your parents have given you a strange little name, certainly . . .’
‘How about “Charlie”?’
‘I like “Charlie” even less, though there may be something of Chaplin about you. Imagine yourself in a bowler hat, with a little cane, a moustache grown . . . You don’t shave yet, no?’
‘N-no!’ The question seemed to catch him off guard.
‘Well, no means no, I just asked . . . Where do you suggest we go?’
‘Along the embankment?’ the lad suggested. ‘The choice is trivial, but in the absence of anything better . . . Was it very shameless of me to invite you for a walk?’
‘No, just unusual. You have told your parents, I hope?’
Karlusha smirked:
‘My parents will only be glad that I am in the company of a reliable adult rather than my peers. I don't like them myself.’
‘Whom—your parents?’
‘My peers. And, note, of any sex. The girls behave like fish: there is exactly as much thought in their eyes.’
‘How harshly you have dismissed them!’
‘Yes, one must be gentler,’ Karlusha admitted. ‘I am trying! It doesn’t work . . . Or like frogs, and with a crown on their heads, to make things worse. They are convinced that they will rule men by means of physiology—you know what I mean—and for a while the most successful ones will manage it, but it is simply nauseating. Is it not nauseating? Tell me, has such a frog-princess ever tried to rule you?’
‘No, God has spared me . . . I understand you!’ I confirmed sympathetically. ‘Of course you cannot help reflecting: in some number of years you will want to start a family, and all around are nothing but . . .’
‘And what has that to do with anything? The thought of a family does not interest me at all!’ the boy snapped in a high little voice.
‘That is your business, and do not think that I am imposing a family on you,’ I walked it back. ‘I am not going to teach anyone about life, do not think it! You least of all.’
‘And perhaps you should,’ my young companion unexpectedly admitted. ‘We secretly want someone to teach us about life, because the adults have suddenly all demonstratively washed their hands of our upbringing, told us to make our own way in this life with our own wits . . . In general, the world has become very cold, no one cares about anyone now. Have you noticed?’
‘It is hard not to notice . . .’
‘So I continue about my peers! The boys are even worse than the girls: they behave like . . . like . . .’
‘Teenagers?’ I suggested.
‘Comparing them to teenagers! Too much honour! Like protozoa, like ciliates, and I even ask myself which is better. The ciliates have a single-celled life, of course, but a serious, adult one, at their own level: they get food, they struggle for existence to the death. And these? These only learn to consume: food, smoke, video content, games, girls. Ah yes, girls have been replaced by porn, almost entirely . . .’
‘Interesting, but very cruel . . .’
‘Yes: I don't like my own cruelty either!’ Karlusha readily admitted. ‘I am ashamed of it—I cannot cope! Hormones, probably—curse this age! Tell me: it will pass, won’t it?’
‘Evidently, yes, the hormones,’ I confirmed. ‘Your voice, however, has not yet dropped . . .’
‘And it is supposed to drop somehow?’ the youth inquired.
‘When it happens, you will see for yourself . . . Do not doubt it: this will certainly pass! Youth,’ I smirked, ‘is the only one of the defects that always, and without exception, passes.’
‘Sooner the better . . . Uncle Oleg, where is the beauty in relations between people? I mean not only between people of different sexes, but ordinary friendship. Though between different sexes too . . . Tell me: were you happy with your wife?’
‘I am no model of a righteous life, Karlusha, but for eight years of our marriage I . . . was not unhappy,’ I answered after some hesitation. ‘And in general: the years of one’s life, whatever they were, cannot be thrown into the waste-paper basket.’
‘Very elevated, very beautiful: one feels the mature wisdom in that,’ he admitted. ‘But I have too few of these years of life so far to understand it. All my years of life could be thrown in the bin, and I would not regret it.’
‘Well, do not hurry to be so free with them . . .’
‘To tremble over one’s savings in a philistine way is also unattractive!’ he parried. ‘So then, about beauty . . . My thoughts keep galloping: is that normal? You are not tired of me yet? About beauty: sometimes I dream that I have grown wings, and I am flying above the world . . .’
‘It is astonishing that you still have such dreams!’ I marvelled sincerely. ‘That means you are a pure, innocent person.’
‘. . . Yes, like in Chagall’s paintings... Do not flatter me about my innocence, please: I am a “corrupt child of a corrupt age”, alas . . . But the dream ends, morning comes, and again one must drag oneself to the hated educational establishment, where on one bench sit our frogs with fish brains, on another, our ciliates, and beside it all are placed functionaries who watch that we sit out the required number of man-hours, and for everything else they have not the slightest concern, simply not the slightest!’
‘You mean the teachers?’ I guessed. ‘It is bad that you tar them all with one black brush, bad and unjust. Surely there are enthusiasts who . . .’
‘Enthusiasts, Uncle Oleg, were in your time,’ Karlusha interrupted. ‘And in ours, if any are left, they are somewhere out there—’ he made a vague gesture with his hand, ‘—in Siberia, in Donetsk, in the new regions. In our school—this I tell you for certain!—enthusiasts will not survive: we will eat them, eat them and spit out the bones! For example: last year a new PE teacher came to our gymnasium, an unusual man, demanding. The girls are discussing in the changing room that he will not last long with us: they will accuse him of having “touched up” someone, I mean, got handsy with someone, and—pfft!—your enthusiast flies out of the school with a wolf’s ticket! A good outcome if it is without a criminal case.’
‘Well, do not believe everything you are tol . . . though, perhaps, precisely this story does look truthful,’ I had to admit.
‘Most teachers,’ the lad continued, ‘know this and behave accordingly, like indifferent officials—or, pardon me, like prostitutes, “What would you like?”, worse than prostitutes, because a prostitute at least is paid by the client, and we do not pay, it’s our parents who pay for us . . .’
‘Yes, a grim picture,’ I agreed. ‘But look, Karlusha, you contradict yourself: now the adults are egoistic and indifferent, and now it turns out you yourselves make them so—or rather, you drive out those who behave differently. Perhaps we are not the only ones to blame?’
‘And am I blaming only the adults?’ my companion exclaimed with a nervous strain. ‘And do not expect logic from a teenager, please: I am all hormones, not logic! Yes, of course, we are all guilty, all of us! “Darkness covers a wave, above which is another wave, above which is a cloud; one darkness upon another, and if a man stretches out his hand, he will not see it,” as the Koran says. You know, the Islamists are, of course, monsters, but there is something in them: at least they do not regard it all with indifference . . .’
‘If they are not indifferent at the cost of other people’s lives, then such “non-indifference” is worth nothing!’ I was indignant.
‘Yes, and that too is an argument, on the other hand,’ the lad agreed. ‘I like that you listen to me seriously, bring arguments, talk to me as to an adult, and not simply in the style of “the little bird chirps—let it chirp”. A question: is what they say on television true? Which I do not watch, incidentally. Or rather, not like that: which of the two main “information bubbles” is to be believed? Have you been to Europe, America? Is it really true that over there it is a wild scene, a drunken stupor, sodomy, the kingdom of the triumphant Antichrist, as the pro-government media say? Somehow I do not quite believe it . . .’
‘I have been no further than the Czech Republic in Europe . . . To be honest, I did not like it,’ the author of these notes admitted. ‘I remember a poster on a wall in Prague: during the years of fascist tyranny six hundred died, and during the years of communism, six thousand. It seemed to me that the Czechs actively and shamelessly trade in their Russophobia, just like . . . the fallen women you were just recalling. Let them then ban Russian tourists altogether, if their “historical trauma” is genuine and if it still hurts! But no, the Czech Jan will shake his penny out of the Russian Ivan, just as out of the British John. Is that honest?’
‘Good!’ Karlusha praised me. ‘You speak in a quiet voice, about what you have seen yourself, and I believe you. And those “turbo-patriots” who squeal like piglets on Solovyov’s Sunday Evening—tell me, can they be believed? Another question, similar: how is one to regard the president, whom we will elect again next year? Don’t think anything of it, I actually find him likeable. But the term itself, beyond all reasonable limits! Does it not seem to you that in Russia one can die and be reincarnated right here—and he will still be ruling? My father’s friends have bored my ears off with the claim that the remnants of democracy in our country were, at the “reset”, overturned and trampled into the mud by a police boot! Were they or were they not? You are a lawyer by profession, you must have your own opinion about this!’
‘I do not want to argue with your father, Karlusha, and it will be very bad if he tells you one thing and I another!’ I remarked. ‘But . . .’
‘But?’ the lad pounced on the little word. ‘Father is silent, he gets off with general phrases, he does not see a conversation partner in me! But?’
I suddenly understood that one of Darya Arkadyevna’s requests could be partly fulfilled right now. Strange, of course, to confess an old sin to this young creature, who still takes life so childishly! On the other hand, this boy, looking up to me, had the right to, or even should, know about that bad act of mine. What if, on learning it, he would not even want to offer me his hand? And perhaps he would not, and this curious friendship of old and young would end before it had begun. Sad, if so—but, on the other hand, all for the best: what sort of educator of youth am I? Ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil veles—this Roman proverb was, and remains, among my most favourite pieces of wisdom.
Having cleared my throat and warned that my story would take some time, I began to tell Karlusha about Kira.
Against expectation, the lad listened to me very attentively. He put in, of course, his own remarks or clarifying questions—but towards the end, fewer and fewer. The very end of the story affected him as I had not expected: the boy went quite white—though there was nowhere further for him to whiten!—and, muttering something, sat down on a bench we happened to be passing.
‘So that is how it came about that I now have the sin of murder on my soul,’ I finished, sitting down beside him. ‘And why? Because I had black-and-white, linear ideas of good and evil, and wanted to squeeze life into a simple, rather stupid scheme, not even thought through by myself. And a living person turned out to be more complicated than the scheme . . . Listen, Karl, are you all right?’
‘ “Karl”, how funny,’ the lad smiled with an effort. ‘You know, there is a meme about Karl, you have surely seen it . . . My heart even ached somehow from your story.’
‘Really, or figuratively?’ I was alarmed. Sixteen years is not yet an age for heart disease, but the young today are ill one in two.
‘Figuratively. . . J. B. Priestley has a similar play, we analysed an excerpt from it, but it could never have entered my head that in life it also happens . . .’
‘I do not know, I have not read it, I have not even heard the name. You are very impressionable, too impressionable, Karl!’ I reproached him. ‘Probably that speaks of your being an interesting, sensitive person—but a boy, a future man, must after all be a bit tougher. How will you live on?’
‘A boy?’ the lad repeated, at a loss—and stared at me helplessly with all his eyes, even opening his mouth a little.
And I stared at him. What a delicate, graceful face, though!
The corners of Karlusha’s lips began to twitch.
‘Forgive me, this is so unexpected, I . . . You . . . So you were . . . all this time . . .’
The young person beside me hid their face in their hands, as though struggling not to laugh. Briskly they sprang to their feet.
‘It is so funny that I cannot continue,’ they explained. ‘And shameful too. Forgive me, I must go home! I will ring you, without fail!’
Having run ten paces from me, Karlusha turned round and, smiling, shouted at the top of her voice:
‘I’m a girl!’

Part Three



1

The new working week began with rains. Those dreary rains were slightly brightened only by the expectation of a coming holiday—starting as early as Thursday. Before a holiday, many of us try to get as much done as possible, and so I worked all Monday through—drearily and without any incidents. The evening passed ordinarily too.
And late in the evening I was overcome by the sharpest toska—funny to say!—for Kira. There was not so much repentance in it as toska itself: ache, longing, and melancholy, all in one. I tried to remember what the girl looked like, of whom I did not even have any photographs left, and I cursed myself in the foulest terms for the self-satisfaction with which I had accepted her trusting affection. What did she ever find in me, my God? Nothing but ‘honest grey eyes’ perhaps (the expression was not hers but Kristina’s)—and even those eyes deceived her, with their stupid, short-sighted honesty . . .
My eight-year marriage to Kristina, which both I and everyone around us had surely considered an example of the most ‘real’, ‘serious’ marriage, began in the light of Kira to seem to me a sort of surrogate, a trial version of relations with a woman (let this not sound as a reproach to my ex-wife: I was probably a mediocre husband too, and there it is). Fool, fool! Had I married Kira then, our daughter (why must it be a daughter?) would by now have reached the age of ‘Karlusha’, for instance. In any case, that imaginary daughter would have remained alive . . .
How, I asked myself, had I ever managed to exchange a living and sincere girl for a purely mental, head-bound loyalty to a ‘comrade’ whose slogans did not even seem especially attractive to me even then, who never said thank you to any of us for our loyalty, who took that loyalty as a natural tribute to his own intelligence and talent, who even personally repelled me with his self-assurance and condescension? Go and work out why the young, and especially the Russian young, commit such monstrous stupidities! The story of Kira and Nazarov could have happened in the time of Dostoevsky, Leskov, Saltykov-Shchedrin; except for the names, not a single word would have needed changing. Oh, when will we grow up as a nation!
‘What use is it blaming “the nation”?’ the mocking inner observer commented. ‘Was it “the nation”, then, that made you take the role of public prosecutor that evening?’
And must I now, until my very death, carry this regret for my incredible youthful stupidity like a huge ugly hump?—I asked myself on Monday, and shivered at the prospect.

2

The next day, however, there was no time to remember the past: life began to whirl.
On Tuesday I was receiving new clients—and, tearing myself away from my papers once again, I saw Savely Ivanovich in person! His monumental figure barely squeezed into the visitor’s chair.
Mefodyev had come to Voskhod as an ordinary client (he had, incidentally, paid for the consultation, not counting on my receiving him as a good acquaintance, ‘for free’). To convey the working part of the conversation in all its details, I think I shall not; I will say only that his questions concerned the work of Orthodox Sunday schools, with which Cyril and Methodius was naturally connected: it is precisely church schools that need Orthodox literature in the first place. The ironic little demon inside me pushed me to ask: who else, apart from Sunday schools, buys the books of his publishing house? I restrained myself, of course. As though there were few Orthodox people! And it is not the fault of Cyril and Methodius that many of those who think themselves Orthodox read no books at all. And when had I last held a book in my hands? There it is . . .
Any Sunday school these days works in a ‘grey’ zone of legislation. According to the law ‘On Education’, an ordinary religious institution cannot engage in educational activity. According to another law, however, a religious organisation not only has the full right ‘to teach the religion to its followers’, but this right is almost imposed on it as a duty. The teaching of religion is, moreover, quite capable of bearing the marks of educational activity, such as: regularity, periodicity, the existence of a curriculum, the assessment of educational achievement, and so on. So what is a poor parish priest to do, in order to violate neither one law nor the other? How, for instance, is he to issue a certificate of completion from a Sunday school, since pious parents of pious little children would like to hang this certificate on the wall? What should be written in it, so that neither the regional department of the Ministry of Justice, nor the police, nor the prosecutor’s office ‘got aroused’ (forgive the professional jargon) at the sight of it?
Of course, I gave the editor-in-chief of Cyril and Methodius all the necessary explanations. Into some of the laws I had to read deeply, and look for examples of law-enforcement practice on them, directly in the course of the consultation. ‘Why then is a lawyer needed, if the client can read everything himself?’ someone will ask me. I am afraid this question can be put to the representatives of a vast majority of the professions existing today. Clients, I will answer, are afraid to draw conclusions from what they have read on their own: they have no knack for it, no skill, no confidence that their own interpretation will turn out to be correct. There is hardly any need to say that the lawyer has no such confidence either, but people pay money with great pleasure in order to shift onto a ‘professional’ at least part of the responsibility for the decisions taken. Since they do this without any compulsion and even with relish, who are we to refuse them?
Mefodyev’s second question concerned catechists, their legal status, and the documents confirming that status. Savely Ivanovich shared with me: he dreams that young graduates, or even senior students, of theological seminaries would go through the towns and villages bearing the word of God; that they—persistent, energetic, talented—would compete with the stupefaction of Asian cults, the vulgarity of secular psychology, and the cheapness of the media. According to the editor-in-chief, this ‘bold’ idea was discussed at the diocesan council, and a preliminary, cautious approval had been received from the bishop. (What had Mefodyev found so especially bold in it? True, the idea lacked realism, that was certain. To whom and where would these young Orthodox gurus preach?) So then, what documents should a young preacher stock up on, in order to avoid problems with the secular authorities? Of course, here too I tried to give the most detailed answers.
Put simply, the substantive part of the consultation was substantial and clearly did not look like a mere pretext for seeing my modest person. And yet I could not shake a feeling of slight strangeness, of the strained quality of what was happening. Were there few good lawyers in the city? Could the catechist question really be so urgent that it had to be settled at once?
Everything was asked, explained, written down, and the time came to shake hands. Savely Ivanovich had already begun to rise from the chair, leaning on the armrests, when he caught himself:
‘Ah, I almost forgot! Oleg Valeryevich, my dear, I will take another five minutes of your time, you do not mind?’
There it was! I nodded tensely.
‘You see, I keep thinking about that little fairy tale of yours, the one you told the other day,’ Mefodyev continued. ‘And you told it skilfully, I must note: you ought to try yourself in writing for children—would you not like to? You would write half a dozen little tales, and we would find an illustrator, publish them . . . A joke, as you understand!’ There was as much cheerfulness in his humour as there was alcohol in non-alcoholic champagne. ‘Though in every joke . . . It was talented—but unjust. By your account it comes out as though “Baroness Munchausen” abandoned her baron and rolled off to Baden-Baden with some young attractive count. Well, and in reality everything happened quite differently . . .’
‘I do not know how precisely it happened, or whether there was a “young attractive count”,’ the author of these lines answered cautiously. ‘The baroness, at least, hinted to me that he did indeed exist. But what is it to me? We are all imperfect people.’
‘There, there,’ Mefodyev readily picked up. ‘All the more so since the baron’s life path was also crossed by some pretty peasant woman . . . Oleg Valeryevich!’ he spoke now in a direct language, without circumlocutions. ‘Hristina is finding it hard, and she feels bad. Yes, there is a large share of truth in your reproach—yes, she did not support you in a difficult moment. But you did not support her either!’
‘No, that is not so!’ I objected, feeling that they were trying to make me guilty of something in which I saw no guilt of mine. ‘I wanted to preserve our marriage—I proposed that we be married in church!’
‘And very good, and praiseworthy,’ he agreed with me, nodding his big head. ‘Well, and she showed a womanly weakness. And you did not have enough persistence to hold her. And it is precisely the man who should take onto his shoulders the burden of such persistence!’
‘But not against the will of the woman, Savely Ivanovich?’
‘Ah, Oleg Valeryevich, “against the will”, “not against the will” . . . It is, forgive me, my good man, your legal soul speaking, not your Christian one. Which of us really knows what is in our will? Even men do not know it, and women—least of all.’
‘Yes, perhaps it is precisely my legal soul that speaks,’ I admitted. ‘And, to be honest, I do not wish to be ashamed of it. And as for my responsibility, and especially as to the claim that I ought to have “held and not let go” my wife—I fear we differ, you and I.’
‘Oleg Valeryevich, I came to you not as an enemy and not for the sake of arguments! People make mistakes. Right now you are standing in a proud Napoleonic pose, your hands behind your back, and all of it—because of a single momentary weakness of Hristina’s. Would it not be more merciful to stretch out our hands to one another? Or are you telling me aloud right now that you are laying a stone in the hand extended to you?’
He even half-rose, raised his voice, and really did stretch his great paw towards me—into which I had positively nothing to put, there being no objects in my study of a size to match his palm, except the archive folders. All of it looked somewhat theatrical—I thought with displeasure that in another moment my colleagues, drawn by his stentorian voice, would begin to poke curious heads through the door of my study—but the anxiety written on his face seemed the most heartfelt and sincere. I could not understand this man. What drove him? Not mercenary considerations, surely! A love of the beautiful gesture? Such a love is not to be underestimated: what deeds it does not push people into! This, probably, and more still—the pleasure of the thought of what a God-pleasing deed he, the noble elder, was performing—and almost without effort! True, at my expense . . .
‘I had already thought, in any case, of trying to come together with Kristina again,’ I informed my interlocutor—and saw how he lit up all over, smoothing the folds of his face into a smile. ‘Only one will have to try “from scratch”, and we have both changed in these two years, so I can promise nothing.’
‘God be with you, Oleg Valeryevich, who and when could give guarantees in such a delicate, complicated matter?’ he agreed easily. ‘So may I convey to the servant of God Hristina that, not without my modest participation, your door will now not be locked to her?’
‘Do me that kindness.’
‘Ah, how pleasant to see and to think that five minutes of my time turned out not useless for the healing of old wounds . . . By the way, on the nineteenth of June I am preparing a presentation of my little book, Lessons in Mentorship, at the regional library—all of it written from living experience! Though my experience is, of course, comparatively scant, and I do not even dream that anyone would place me in the same rank as the true lights of our Russian sanctity . . . Would you not like to come?’
‘If my schedule allows, Savely Ivanovich,’ I evaded a direct answer. ‘We are not always masters of our time, but I will keep your invitation in mind.’
We rose, shook each other’s hands, and exchanged all the courtesies with which it is proper to conclude such a benevolent and fruitful conversation.

3

I called my ex-wife that same evening—and she joyfully informed me that she had always believed in the power of her spiritual father’s persuasion, in spite of my cold and unfriendly letter, which had upset her so much that she had not even intended to reply to me . . . But it seemed I was not quite hopeless!
On Wednesday evening we arranged a ‘date’: I invited my ex-wife to a caf;. It coincided with the start of my holiday, so there was a formal occasion to celebrate it.
In the caf; itself we spoke very little: we exchanged pleasant and empty phrases, and looked each other over. I examined her studied make-up, her hair, her dark-green evening dress, with pleasure. Kristina noticed all of this, and bathed in my attention.
Over dessert I nevertheless made an attempt to speak about serious things, though I preferred to begin with humour. I started telling her about Savely Ivanovich’s appearance at Voskhod, and about his thoroughly medieval conviction that I ought, two years ago, to have shown persistence and not allowed the divorce to happen. It was served, of course, under the sauce of ‘Is it not amusing, the views people have?’ Kristina, however, did not bat an eyelid.
‘In a true Orthodox family, that is exactly how it would have been,’ she informed me, with a perfectly straight face. ‘And, you know, there is something very attractive in any man who is capable of taking decisions both for himself and for the woman.’
‘Really?’ I was astonished. ‘And, I believe, two years ago we were not a “true Orthodox family”?’
‘We never were . . . Do not think, Oleg, that I take my own share of responsibility off myself,’ she sighed noticeably.
The dessert was eaten, the wine drunk, the bill paid—and we understood that we had only just begun the real conversation; we had not even begun it, but only approached it. There arose the unspoken question of where to continue the conversation.
‘Take me to your bachelor den!’ Kristina ordered with a smile. ‘I never did get a proper look at it last time. That is, I am not inviting myself, of course . . .’ she clarified at once.
The taxi brought us to my ‘bachelor den’. Barely entering the room, Kristina turned on the overhead light and really did begin to examine it—with the same attention with which a mother studies the first rented lodging of a grown-up son who has recently moved out of the parental flat. I had only just managed to remove the Kara figurine from my desk. Or should I have left it? But I was not ready to share her ‘just yet’. My gesture did not escape Kristina.
‘What are you hiding there? Show me!’ she demanded.
‘I will show you, but . . . later. All right?’
My ex-wife shrugged:
‘Well, keep your secrets, for God’s sake . . . So, and where is your photograph of your “simple peasant woman”?’
‘What peasant woman?’ I pretended not to understand.
‘The very one, “in the patchwork skirt”, who “handed you a glass of water”. Or was that a passing thing with you—a momentary one? What was her name, by the way?’
‘Is it really interesting to you? That “glass of water”, Kristina, was not at all what you have imagined . . .’
‘And I did not imagine anything—what next, as though I cared! I am not the jealous sort, Olezha,’ she added in a different, unironic tone. ‘And not the envious sort either. Everyone has their little sins . . . So what was her name? Is it a secret?’
‘Bogdana,’ I decided to give out part of the truth, translating the Greek roots of Darya Arkadyevna’s passport name into Russian. Kristina’s eyebrows shot up in surprise:
‘Ukrainian, is she? A strange choice! Go and understand you men . . .’
‘Sit down!’ I suggested. ‘There is no truth in standing.’
We sat—she on the sofa, I at my desk—and I understood that sooner or later I would have to tell her about Darya. Darya Arkadyevna had managed to become important to me; with quiet steps she had entered my life and taken a perceptible place in it. To hide her from a future wife—if that was where things were heading—would be wrong, dishonest, even a bad act. So I needed to open up . . . But I should probably begin with Kira: in the end, my ‘mentor’, if I could call her that at all, had pulled precisely this story out of my memory and asked me to confess my guilt to others.
‘Kristina, do you remember that I studied in the law faculty?’ I began straight off. ‘Well, you do not know everything about my student days . . .’
Kristina listened to my story patiently, politely, like an obedient little girl, examining the tip of her shoe, as though showing that she was not, in fact, very interested. ‘What a contrast with “Karlusha”!’ I could not help thinking. ‘Though what do you expect: each of us is more than twice Karlusha’s age. A person inevitably grows callous with the years . . .’ She raised her head when I fell silent, to say:
‘Very touching. And . . . what are you saying all this for?’
‘What for?’ I was taken aback. ‘To repent . . .’
‘To repent? Of what do you need to repent? Did you personally strangle her? Your whole group decided in chorus that it was your Kira who was to blame, no one else.’
‘You see, sometimes even a whole group of people, without exception, can be mistaken,’ I remarked.
‘I cannot manage to see that!’
‘Why?’
‘Because there is—and even I realise this with my weak woman’s brain—there’s such a thing as public morality, and because that morality is created by society, Oleg!’ She stood up and began to walk about the room. ‘The one who goes against the collective harms people, and he is the guilty one. It all comes from pride, understand? From self-love, from pride! Do not think that I justify your Nazarov!’ she added at once. ‘He and Kira are birds of a feather.’
‘I am not prepared to agree with you, because a small part of society, like a student group, a revolutionary cell, or a gang of robbers, sometimes harms the whole country,’ I objected.
‘Oh, do not start: so now it is a gang of robbers! And you want to tell me that your passion acted like a holy woman, saved the country from a terrorist? Do not tell me!’
‘She was not my passion!’
‘Evidently I understood you badly, or you told it badly.’
‘The Jews, let me remind you, condemned Christ collectively, in a whole crowd. Why do you not hasten to reason about public morality and about the self-love of the one who went against the collective, in their case?’
‘Oh, Christ himself! Already a whole Christ? So you place Christ and your little Kira on the same bench? Why did she lay hands on herself, then, if she was five minutes short of a saint?!’
I stumbled. The conversation was taking an unexpected, too-personal, and somewhat boorish turn.
‘Who on earth taught you all this . . .’ my ex-wife muttered before I could think of a worthy answer. ‘Surely also your peasant woman? Perhaps you will finally tell me about her, instead of about your love affairs of twenty years ago?’
‘I am not prepared to tell you anything with this mood of yours—merciless, unjust, and frankly malicious!’ I flung at her.
‘That is quite all right, Oleg Valeryevich, as much as you please . . . But do you at least understand that in the life of a decent man there cannot be two women at the same time? We are not living in Saudi Arabia!’
I smirked:
‘Well, then there is something very much of Mefodyev in your life.’
‘How can you compare! And if there is some share of truth in your words,’ she unexpectedly surrendered quickly, ‘then it is you who are to blame anyway!’
‘I?!’
‘You! It was you, you who two years ago left me without any spiritual guidance! Even though a husband is obliged to be his wife’s spiritual director!’
‘You, my dear, as I recall, did not want any spiritual guidance two years ago—or have you forgotten?’
‘I wanted it—you simply did not ask me!’
‘Ah, so that is it . . .’
We were silent for a while, exhausted by this shouting match.
‘We have taken the wrong tone,’ I admitted with chagrin. ‘And everything we are doing now is wrong. One thing I cannot understand: why did you need me again at all?’
‘Yes, the wrong tone,’ Kristina agreed with bitterness in her voice. ‘It was just that I naively thought that you would appreciate the kindness of Savely Ivanovich, who spent his personal time on our reconciliation . . .’
‘A whole five minutes, as he himself said,’ I interrupted. ‘I know another spiritual teacher, Kristina! A teacher who does not consider that serious changes in a person can be made in five minutes, and who does not haggle, counting every second spent.’
Kristina, with an offended movement of her shoulders, went out into the hall without a word. I helped her into her coat. She accepted my help in silence, and just as silently went out, closing the door behind her.

 
4

For about fifteen minutes after my ex-wife’s departure I sat in a stupor, and then I dialled Darya’s number.
‘Darya Arkadyevna, I have just tried to reconcile with my ex-wife, and instead I have quarrelled with her for good,’ I blurted out as soon as she picked up—and added belatedly, ‘Good evening!’
‘Come over and tell me everything,’ was the easy offer at the other end.
‘I am a little embarrassed,’ I hesitated. ‘It is already past nine . . .’
‘Is someone keeping you, then?’ my companion inquired a little mockingly. ‘Won’t your mother let you out of the house?’
‘Teasing, that’s what we are doing . . . Very well, I will come, but afterwards do not complain that I have taken to visiting you towards evening!’
‘There is no one for me to complain to . . . I will wait!’
Some time passed, however, before I managed to call a taxi to the gardening association.
In the kitchen Darya set before me a mug of a steaming, pleasantly fragrant drink.

‘Drink it!’ she asked. 'It will pick you up. And it will clear the brain of alcohol, because I can feel that you have had a drop.’
‘One glass . . . What is this?’
‘Sagaan-dali.’
‘From a tea shop, then, you ordered it?’ I reasoned.
‘No, not at all: it grows on my plot . . . I planted it myself!’ she boasted. ‘A thousand roubles a little bush, though: expensive . . .
The Siberian rhododendron tea was pleasantly bitter and really did sharpen the mind—or so it seemed to me.
‘And now tell me!’ the hostess ordered. ‘Only wait, let me get my knitting. It will not disturb you, no?’
As best I could, I conveyed the argument that had taken place less than an hour before. My listener knitted.
‘So your good lady is jealous of me,’ she defined the essence of the matter in a single phrase when I had finished, pursing her lips as though holding back a smile.
‘Darya Arkadyevna, I would not want you to see it in exactly that way . . .’
‘And what is there to see . . . Do not take it to heart, Oleg Valeryevich!’ the mistress of the house asked me. ‘People measure everything by their own mind, and usually bark up the wrong tree.’
‘I have not heard such a proverb.’
‘It’s an English one: it has stuck in my memory from my school years,’ she explained. ‘I studied badly! Only such nonsense stays in the head . . .’
‘By the way, since we have started talking about your school years . . . I am still under the impression of your Personal Diary for Girls!’ I admitted.
‘Why so?’ my companion inquired merrily. ‘Struck by its enormous literary merits?’
‘No, not struck, I am afraid. Struck by the gaping discrepancy between its form and its content. Opening it, one expects entries like “Sasha has had his hair cut . . . What an idiot! Now I feel nothing for him—” ’ (Darya Arkadyevna laughed shortly at hearing my specimen of girlish prose) ‘—and then one reads how you say to your schoolteacher, “Your Highness!” Why, by the way, did you use that particular fairy tale?’
‘Because I had nothing else!’ the hostess explained readily. ‘Had I by that time read, say, something by Plato, I would have asked him to be my Socrates. As it was, though, the story about the boy from the distant planet turned out to be the only philosophical book I had managed to read.’
‘Philosophical, you say?’ I clarified with doubt.
‘And what else could it be?’
‘Though perhaps you are right . . . Your teacher—did he at least understand you?’
‘Of course he understood, from the first second! “Is that from The Little Prince?” he asked. I nodded. “And what do you understand by the ‘Fox’?”—“I want you to be my teacher.”—“But I am leaving the school.”— “That does not matter! I do not need English lessons. I need . . .’ Here I got a little stuck, because I did not know what to call it. But I finished, ‘I need lessons in life.”
‘English!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, English, and what surprises you?’
‘I was certain that your Prince was a literary man!’ the author of these lines admitted. ‘Of all school subjects, English was the least likely to have entered my head: the most pragmatic, businesslike, and, forgive me, the most wingless subject.’
‘There, there, you will say anything . . . Do you know Sister Nivedita, Oleg Valeryevich?’
‘No, how would I? There are no nuns among my acquaintances at all . . .’
‘She has already died.’
‘Wait, stop!’ I realised. ‘Sister Nivedita, that is Margaret Noble. Of course I know of her. A disciple of Vivekananda?’ (Darya nodded.) ‘I heard of Vivekananda in my youth in the discussion club of our faculty—the liberation of India, the struggle against the rigidity of caste prejudices, all that sort of thing—but that you were acquainted with her, I could not even have imagined.’
‘Of course, we here sup cabbage soup with a bast shoe . . . Not only acquainted, but her portrait is in my light-room. With her, I . . .’
‘What?’ I expected an ending like ‘talked on many occasions’.
‘No, nothing . . . Nothing! She must have listened to her master’s instructions in “wingless” English, right? You see, it did not hinder her.’
‘Struck by your argument to the very heart.’
‘You use so many unnecessary words into which you put almost nothing,’ I was reproached.
‘Guilty, I will improve,’ I repented. ‘My stupid surprise interrupted your story. So what happened next?’
‘The Prince suggested we go down to the ground floor, and so we did. We took our things from the cloakroom: it was a single one for pupils and teachers. Without any agreement between us, we went out into the street together. In the street he looked me over with doubt and said something like, “You know, Dolly, that the first and last time I invited a pupil to my home ended with my dismissal?” ’
‘Ah, so that is why it was “Dolly”!’ I interrupted. ‘Now everything comes together . . .’
‘Yes—only do not interrupt me at every step! “But you have already been dismissed!” I objected. “Now nothing is in your way!”’
Both of us—Darya and I—laughed.
‘And we really did go to his home,’ my companion continued. ‘He lived by turns in his mother’s flat—she was ill with something and, I think, died a few years later—and at his dacha.’
‘How strange: he lived at a dacha too . . .’
‘Why, in this very house where we are now sitting!’
‘You inherited it?!’ I was astonished.
‘No, I received it by deed of gift.’
‘Well, I never!’ I whistled disrespectfully. ‘A muzhik has deeded you his only piece of real estate! I have clearly been underestimating you . . .’
‘Muzhiks, or peasants, Oleg Valeryevich,’ I was patiently informed, ‘are another social class, to use learned words. He was not a muzhik, he was a Prince.’
‘I beg your pardon. And what happened next?’
‘And next we discussed everything. The Prince proposed that I write to him. No, I objected: that will not do! I am not a bookish person.’
‘Tell that to someone else,' I muttered with doubt. ‘Both Blok, and Rilke, and Sister Nivedita . . .’
‘Well, I have read a few books,’ Darya agreed readily. ‘Does that change anything? I am not a bookish person, that is what I said. I needed a live speech. But how and when? He was at a loss. “I am not fit to be a ‘teacher of life’,” he explained to me at some point. “Or rather, I have never tried. You are the first person who has asked me for it, and probably the last.”—“Do not chase after quantity!” I objected. “Even if it is only a single one. I do not doubt your qualifications: I listened to you very attentively about the Jabberwock.”’
‘Jabberwock—what is that, now?’
‘Everything in its own time, and if we start running ahead I will never finish! “The gymnasium—what is the gymnasium?” I continued, at seventeen. “I will leave it if it’s really necessary. Though there is a better idea.”’
There and then, without putting it off, I telephoned our deputy headmistress in his presence. And I told her flat out: I intended to rent lodgings in the city. Why? Because I had become the fianc;e of a graduating seminarian and was preparing to marry him! And no, I could not “love at a distance”: things had already gone far with us. There, I lied to her, took the sin on my soul . . . The classes, I said, I would attend together with the “town” girls: not all of our girls lived in the dormitory.
‘But evidently many did . . . So they allowed you, just like that?’ I doubted.
‘What else could they do! In any case, Olga had told me even earlier that one seminarian’s fianc;e had moved in with her intended, and that the school administration had had to agree to it silently. There were, of course, sighs, groans, exhortations, but I did not flinch. I could have left the gymnasium altogether! And who wanted a new scandal when another had only just, barely, miraculously been avoided? Do you know that when Ali . . . when the Rose disappeared, they even called the police? Besides, Oleg Valeryevich, you are forgetting what sort of institution it was! Its main task was the preparation of pious Orthodox women, ideally matushkas. And here their pupil was turning into a matushka, a little early, but very seemly.’
‘Wait, and your parents?’
‘I had become an orphan a year before . . . I had a guardian—Lyubov’ Sergeyevna, Olga’s mother, my aunt!—but she did not care. I think she was only glad to have me off her hands.’
‘Yes, that explains a great deal, otherwise where would you have got the audacity . . .’
‘Of course!’ the storyteller confirmed with a serious face. ‘My girl classmates treated me well, considered me something like a holy fool—or, in plainer words, a little touched—and pitied me . . . yet all the same I was not truly friends with anyone, and I felt utterly alone in the whole world!’
‘The psychological reasons for your step are clear. Nevertheless I listen to you, Darya Arkadyevna, and I cannot believe it. That is, I believe that it happened exactly so—but it does not fit in my head, how you managed it all: young, inexperienced, and, in the end, underage!’
‘I did not doubt for a single second that it would all work out . . . In life one must not doubt: one must go forward without any fear. Young as I was, I already knew that then.’
‘Well, you know, I am also thinking that by your decision you left your Prince no choice either.’
‘He was only glad, probably . . . Yes, I think I did not leave him one!’ Darya laughed. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force—do you know that?’
‘Now I will know . . . Why, I wonder, did the Rose in your fairy tale not hit on this same method? She too could have pretended to be the fianc;e of a future priest!’
‘Why did it not occur to her? God knows, Oleg Valeryevich! She was not so bold—by the way, her parents were alive, she did not feel completely free . . . Do you think I never imagined what would have happened if she had been bolder? But in the end everything turned out for the best: what she lost, I gained. The Rose later went abroad: either to the USA, or England, or Canada.’
‘As one might expect . . . I am embarrassed to ask: and what happened next? You and the Prince . . . did you begin to live together?'
‘A pox on your tongue, and are you not ashamed! He rented me a little flat.’
‘A whole little flat?’
‘Yes: on the upper floor of a two-storey wooden house. I would like to visit that house one day, if it is still standing . . . Funny, but my whole life has passed in wooden houses! And now too . . .’
‘It seems the work of a teacher at an Orthodox gymnasium fourteen years ago was paid better than I can imagine.’
‘No, that is not so!’ my companion objected. 'You see, he was offered that same summer to go to one of the Middle Eastern countries as a translator, and he agreed. He might not have come back—he himself was even certain that he would not. In his last letter to the Rose he expressed the hope that in a year he would be in Russia again, but only so that she would not torment herself in vain. He himself knew everything . . . We had only a month and a half left. During that month and a half we saw each other almost every day. He would come to me and stay an hour or two, no more, and leave after sunset. We talked about everything under the sun! Those conversations never wearied me. Sometimes we were silent too: that silence did not weigh on us either.’
‘And sometimes,’ I continued, ‘he read you his Gospel—which he evidently wrote under the inspiration of that astonishing question of yours.’
‘Yes, he read it . . .’
Darya took up her knitting again, and knitted in silence for about a minute. I did not interrupt her occupation.
‘I know, Oleg Valeryevich,’ she began again, ‘what you are waiting for: for me to go out, come back with his manuscript, and read you something from it. But that is even harder than introducing you into the light-room. Before you, I have shown this book to only one person: he is already an old man, and one does not expect a trap from him. You understand, it is not mine. And most of all I am afraid of your contemptuous, indifferent, clever-sounding attitude to it.’
‘I promise to be silent,’ I assured her. ‘Both during the reading and after.’
‘It will not work like that: everything is always written on your face! Well, all right, let it be. Let it be,’ she sighed. ‘One cannot keep it forever like grandmother’s dinner service and never show it to anyone . . .’
Coming out of the kitchen, Darya after a while returned with a thick notebook in a black binding.
‘The Gospel is quite small—eight little chapters in all,’ she explained. ‘And the little chapters are tiny too. I will read you two today.’
‘Guided by the principle of “all in good time”?’ I guessed.
‘Call it whatever you like . . .’

5

The Chapter on Dignity

1. Anyone can become a Prince. For this, money, power, or noble birth are not needed.
2. A Prince needs only one thing: a sense of aching freedom and homelessness in the whole world. This world is not the Prince’s world. The Prince arrived from another planet and will never forget this.
3. There are several qualities that make a Prince a Prince and separate him from other people.
4. A Prince does not descend to rudeness. He disdains vulgarity.
5. A Prince does not allow other people to lead him by the nose.
6. A Prince does not live on another’s mind or another’s conscience. He spends much time forging his own prince-iples. He does not borrow them from anyone.
7.  A Prince has an easy attitude to money and does not tremble over it. He is a Prince, not the Miserly Knight.
8. A Prince is not concerned with the accumulation of goods. He comes into the world with empty hands and so he leaves it.
9. A Prince does not shrink from any labour. But a Prince does not dance with the mummers to another’s pipe. A Prince does not change his principles.
10. A Prince is always ready for anything. He is capable both of ascending the throne and of spending his whole life in exile, unrecognised by anyone. And there is its own good in never being recognised!
11. A Prince lives in the world, but he is not of the world.
12. A Prince is not an Overman. The Overman is a proud man who considers that the laws are not written for him.
13. A Prince writes his own laws and judges himself more strictly than people would judge him.
14. A Prince is his own highest court. There is no one who could judge him. Shall we really allow even the Rose to judge the Prince? Why not then the baobab, or the camelthorn?
15. The author of the thought of the Overman wished to shake the King of Kings, like a stone idol, to overturn him, to cast him down into a sewer.
16. But the King of Kings is not a stone idol, nor iron, nor gold.
17. Christ is space.
18. Who can cast down space?
19. Let this small good news about the Prince overturn the false idol—the Overman! Which of us is ‘over’ the others, and where is ‘over’ located?
20. In the Universal Space, through which the planet of the Prince flies, there is no top and no bottom.

6

The Chapter on the Rose

1. One Prince is lonely. Another has a Rose.
2. True, there are also those who live in the desert, and a Rose is not needed by them at all. Sweet is their lot!
3. There are thousands of flowers like the Rose, but the Rose can be only one.
4. As the Prince seeks his Rose, so let the Rose seek her Prince and not be deceived by false tsareviches: their crowns are cardboard and will get soaked in the rain.
5. A Prince does not hurry to say ‘You are my Rose’ to a thistle, a burdock, or a camelthorn.
6. But let him know that even a camelthorn is better than an artificial rose.
7. Artificial roses have their place only in the cemetery of life. The world is the cemetery of every life. That is why one must live in the world, but not be a relative to it. Who would want to become a relative of a cemetery?
8. A Prince takes care of his Rose. He patiently endures the pricks of her thorns.
9. But even while caring for the Rose, he does not become like her. A Prince, even the smallest one, is a warrior, not a flower.
10. A Prince does not make a vulgar greenhouse out of his garden. He does not boast of his Rose to friends. True, a Prince usually has no friends either.
11. A bad Prince is one who, because of the aroma of the Rose, forgets everything in the world!
12. A man who has drunk himself drunk on the aroma of flowers becomes a Drunkard. To be a Drunkard is a sad fate.
13. After death, the bitterest Drunkards end up on the Planet of Drunkards. It is hard to escape from that planet.
14. But it is also foolish to know nothing of the aroma of flowers. For whom does the Rose bloom, if not for the Prince!
15. However, there are royal Princes of the desert, and this is not said of them.
16. Few are capable of matching the Princes of the desert in their royalty! They are imitated, but those who imitate them are ordinary swindlers.
17. When the Merchant offers the Prince to sell him the Rose, paying with his princely dignity, let the Prince reject such a dishonest deal.
18. A genuine Rose cannot be bought. Only artificial roses, the cemetery flowers, are sold.
19. The crown of a Prince cannot be taken away—there is no force in the whole world to take it away! But some part with it of their own will.
20. The world is full of people who were once princes: bitterly they wander across the cemetery of life, fooled by the greedy Merchant.
21. Who will save them? No one, not even the Prince, knows the answer.

7

Having finished reading, Darya closed the notebook and put it aside.
‘You worried in vain that I would be disappointed!’ I began after some time: something had to be said, after all. ‘Beautiful, poetic prose with its own inner rhythm, which sometimes approaches the verse-like; one hears in it something Near Eastern, and it is even strange that it was written under our grey sky and not under an Egyptian one. About the content I find it hard to judge: it is too personal, too particular, and it will sound in unison with one person, while leaving another indifferent. This is a text written by a thinker, and you were right when you said that it resembles Zarathustra—or rather, an Anti-Zarathustra, because the first chapter is clearly in polemic with Nietzsche. About its weight, its significance, its truthfulness I cannot speak—am I a philosopher, or a mystic? I am merely an ordinary “office rat”, so how should I reason about such matters? How should I think about whether Christ is space, and how an ordinary person is to understand that? But the conception itself is impressive: I don’t know many people who would risk throwing down a challenge to Nietzsche—indeed, I know none. Except perhaps,’ I smirked, ‘the spiritual father of my ex-wife, who is right now finishing his Lessons in Mentorship—and will publish them on good paper, in a decent print run, be assured! Even though they will be read by two or three Orthodox gossips . . .’
‘You are not a rat... I do not know, Oleg Valeryevich,’ Darya remarked with calm sadness (or did the sadness only seem to me?), ‘how many people will read this book. Perhaps the same two or three people.’
‘Have you never tried to change that?’
‘No, never! And I do not think it should be changed.’
‘Will you . . . allow me to photograph the manuscript with my telephone camera?’ Seeing that my companion was clearly hesitating, I added, ‘You have the only copy: what if something happens to it? This way, at least, a copy will be preserved with me.’
‘Very well,’ she agreed. ‘But I ask you: please, be very, very careful about whom you give this little book into the hands of!’
Armed with my telephone, I photographed the eight short chapters of the Gospel, while Darya was occupied with something in the neighbouring room. Returning to the kitchen, she announced:
‘I have made you up a bed in the workroom on the guest camp bed. I myself will go to the light-room.’
‘Darya Arkadyevna, it is awkward for me to stay here . . .’
‘Will your ex-wife not approve?’ my companion guessed. ‘You do not have to tell her everything . . . Better look at the time: a taxi will not come here this late! Well, enough: what an idea to argue with me . . . Good night!’
Arguing with Dorothea Arkadyevna really did not succeed: for it was precisely she who, while still an eleventh-grader, had turned out more stubborn than the entire school administration. Having stood in bewilderment in the middle of the dark kitchen, I went off to sleep on the camp bed assigned to me.

8

On Thursday I woke early, around seven. I moved out to the kitchen and put the kettle on the electric hotplate to heat, hoping that the noise of the water would wake Darya Arkadyevna, who was evidently still sleeping the sleep of the righteous. I switched on my telephone—and discovered that a long letter had come to me. From whom, do you think? From Karlusha!

Uncle Oleg, hello!
Forgive me for being silent for three whole days. At last I have gathered my spirit and written to you. (Am I using the expression ‘to gather one’s spirit’ correctly? Wiktionary says I am, but what if it is hopelessly old stuff, and will only make you smirk . . . Well then, we are quits. Another expression I am not sure I use correctly . . .)
All this time you thought I was a boy! Now everything fits: the question about whether I shave, and your worry about how I would start a family if there were nothing but ‘frog-princesses’ around, and what else . . . Very funny, and just the tiniest bit awkward. But it speaks in your favour: it means you certainly had no immodest fantasies about me, etc. (Is it very bold of me to write such things?) So you saw in me a young person first of all, and a girl . . . A girl, it turns out, not at all. It is stupid to confess it, but that is even a wee bit hurtful . . .
I would have liked to remain a boy in your eyes! But now that is impossible. Tell me, will that greatly hinder our . . . friendship?
Uncle Oleg, I have two requests for you—it is because of them that I am writing. The first is quite simple, and the second is so brazen that it simply takes my breath away.
So, the first request. In one of your letters you offered that I do work experience at the firm where you work. For us tenth-graders, it is indeed ‘extremely desirable’ to do career-guidance work experience this summer, damn it all. Father promised in May to arrange a place for me at his work, but now suddenly ‘it is awkward’, ‘it looks like cronyism’, ‘we must set an example of impeccability’, etc. Cool! It would have been even cooler to learn about this earlier . . . Is your offer still good? Can I be registered as an unpaid coffee-carrier for two or three little weeks? I am ready to do something more complicated too, only I understand perfectly well that something more complicated will not be entrusted to me. I am writing in a frivolous tone because I am afraid you will refuse me, and then L; Papan will have to compromise his crystal principles about not permitting nepotism in relation to his own daughter, and that will become terribly unpleasant. (My linguistic education is proceeding at an accelerated pace: cronyism, nepotism, quits . . .)
The second request. And here I do not even know how to approach it.
Let us suppose that we are friends. (That is, if you do not chase me away from your friends with a broom.) But the friendship of an adult man and a not-yet-adult girl looks a little dubious, and it will be hard for me to answer if suddenly someone thinks it's his . . . well, let us use a literary word effing business to ask why I have such grown-up friends. How is one to be? I thought and thought . . . Here is my proposal to you.
I choose you (only do not laugh, please!) as my teacher, my spiritual mentor. Are you laughing, after all? I can just see you laughing . . . Have you finished laughing? And now listen to me seriously.
Yes, I know that you are not some great guru, not even a guru at all. And I, forgive me, am not a model of high morality either. You are not Ambrose of Optina, and I am not Dostoevsky. (Look, look, what facts from our history I know! And I brag about the fact, so that I will be praised: it is funny even to me.) I liked your answers to my questions. They are good, honest answers. Even more than the answers, I liked—no, that is a worthless word—I was struck by your story about Kira. Right there, on the bench, I was covered by the strongest d;j; vu: as though I had once already sat on that bench, and you had told me the very same thing. It was very, very bold. And—a person who was not afraid to tell such a memory to a sixteen-year-old snot-nosed brat (I cannot stand this word, but here it fits perfectly)—can he really be a bad person? Can one not learn a thing or two from him?
Or, how should I know, perhaps you deliberately shared something so personal with me so that I would hang my ears open and let myself be dragged into a dark cellar, where . . . Ugh, what nastiness I am writing. I wanted to erase it, but I will leave it. You ought to know what a mass of thoughts flies through my stupid young head, and what a piece of work I am.
So, I have made my proposal. The decision is yours. I am afraid you will not respond to my foolish request at all. No, most likely it will turn out otherwise: you will tell me that you are ‘very touched’ and ‘value my friendship’, and about the second part of the letter you will pretend that it never existed. Well, it will be a lesson to me. That is how I go about banging into other people, getting bumps, and quietly growing up . . . And is there any other way?
How to end the letter, I do not know. I keep wanting to make a better impression, and I understand perfectly well that all these attempts look like the somersaults of a puppy in the eyes of an old, experienced dog. (Now you will probably be offended on behalf of the dog. Do not be offended, please!)
Written. ‘Having crossed myself and commended myself to the mercy of God’, I am sending it. And the sooner the better, or I will change my mind.

Karolina

P. S. Yes, yes, I am precisely Karolina, in my passport. La Maman named me after—do not fall over—Caroline Alice Elgar. Have you heard of her? O snow, which sinks so light / Brown earth is hid from sight—and the rest of the deadly toska. They are real Anglophiles, my parents, I tell you.
I also answer to ‘Karlusha’. And even ‘Carey’ will do. There is such an actress—Carey Mulligan. Do you like her? Were I a man, I would be her admirer. A pity I do not resemble her at all!
Sorry for the mistakes, if you find any. If there are not enough commas, take some from here: Till then.

Having read the letter to the end, I could not restrain myself—I began to laugh, at first quietly, and then louder and louder.

9

I was still laughing when the front door opened and a woman I did not know came into the kitchen in a violet tracksuit. She came in—and stared at me with all her eyes, as I stared at her. She found herself first:
‘And who, precisely, are you?’
‘I? I am Darya Arkadyevna’s disciple,’ the author introduced himself. ‘Here I am, sitting, waiting for her to wake . . .’
The woman, with a smirk, sat down on the bench by the door.
‘Come in, have some tea!’ I suggested—rather impudently, of course: no one had left me in charge of the kitchen.
‘No, thank you . . . I hoped to be the first . . . Are you here for long?’
I made some indefinite gesture with my hands.
‘I see . . . How did you come?’
To tell her that I had come by taxi the previous evening and had stayed the night seemed to me unwise: what impression would that make! And Darya Arkadyevna’s reputation would suffer . . . So, choosing the lesser of two evils, I blurted out:
‘By bus.’
‘Did you walk from the stop?’
‘Of course.’
‘Uh-huh . . .’ my new acquaintance commented ironically. ‘That is what I was thinking: there was rain in the night, and your trainers are quite clean . . .’
‘It is . . . it is, you see, a change of shoes!’ I found to say.
‘A change?’
‘Of course!’ A wave of inspiration came over me, and I felt like playing the fool. It must have been the childlike, amusing, mischievous letter from Karlusha that did it. Usually the wish to play the fool is not at all characteristic of me: I am a serious man, even a bore. ‘Of course! I regard Darya Arkadyevna’s house as a temple! And in a temple it is proper to take off one’s shoes. But since it is cool, I bring a change of shoes . . . Mother Dorothea has done very, very much for me!’
‘What, exactly?’
‘Oh, I will tell you!’ I felt that I was beginning to slip into Ava’s ‘blessed’ intonations. Who would have thought! There it is—what you laugh at is what you will serve. ‘First, in childhood I had a dog. A beautiful black bitch! “Bitch” is a literary word when one is speaking of a dog—do not flinch so. And she died, as one might guess . . . But Darya Arkadyevna made her again, one for one.’
‘Made her again?!’ the woman in violet exclaimed.
‘Yes—that is, not quite her, but her figurine, but that is a trifle . . . Her figurine brings me great consolation! Also, in my youth I had a girl . . .’
‘Let me guess: she died too?’
‘You have guessed correctly . . .’
‘And Darya Arkadyevna made her again? One for one? To bring you great consolation?’
‘No, not like that—I did not ask her to . . . You think I should?’ I asked, putting on my face an extreme degree of na;vet;.
‘I do not know what to advise you . . . What else has happened to you?’
‘Also, imagine, yesterday I quarrelled with my wife . . . My ex-wife!’
‘Your wife became your ex-wife after you quarrelled with her?’
‘Not exactly, that happened two years ago.’
‘And what was it about, if it is not a secret?’
‘About the fact that she considered that I was putting Christ and this dead girl on the same bench.’
‘I see . . . A figurine?’
‘What figurine?’ I did not understand.
‘Did you place the girl’s figurine next to the crucifix, is what I am asking?’
‘Why a figurine? A living one!’
‘But she is dead already . . . And the dog—or, as you put it, the bitch—did you put her on the same bench?’
‘What are you saying, how could one! I am not yet that stupid . . .’
‘And it seems you are precisely that stupid, forgive me . . . Listen, what is your name?’
‘Oleg,’ I introduced myself.
‘There, and the name fits . . . Dina, very pleased to meet you.’
‘That was offensive about the name . . .’ I muttered, even though I knew that folk clich; about Olegs long before.
‘So I was wrong . . . Oleg! Are you playing a trick on me?’
The corners of my mouth began to twitch. I would certainly have laughed, had the front door not opened again and—who do you think?—Dorothea Arkadyevna herself come in, with a great bundle of brushwood in her own person! I had thought she was sleeping the sleep of the just upstairs.
‘Well, who is to be pulled out with a switch here?’ Darya cried merrily, dropping the bundle on the floor. ‘Hello, hello . . . Dinka, have you been pestering the man again?’
‘What are you saying, Darya Arkadyevna, how could I!’ Dina rumbled in a low, offended contralto.
‘Well, God be with you, you would not tell the truth anyway . . . Oleg, Dina and I need to have a woman-to-woman chat!’
‘Understood—I am leaving,’ I responded.
‘Do not go entirely, do not leave, and I will say a couple of words to you after. But for now, better go out into the yard and rake the mown grass into a pile with the little rake!’ the hostess ordered. ‘The rake is at the entrance, on the right.’
Saluting playfully, I went to carry it out. She had addressed me as ty, the familiar ‘you’, evidently for the sake of the general mood. A week ago, such familiarity would have seemed offensive to me. And now, look at that, I obediently went to look for the rake . . .

10

The easy work was done in about twenty minutes. Having finished with it, I sat down on one of the two benches under the tall juniper and quickly, in five minutes, wrote a reply to Karlusha.

Hello Carey! (Or ‘Karolina’—as you please.)
You are endlessly sweet and amusing. Having read your letter, I really did laugh—but do not be offended at me. You were aiming at that, after all! Were you not?
Arranging your work experience is not at all difficult, and we will write you a reference too. You are not the first trainee, and I am held in good standing at the firm, so I foresee no problems. There is only one small difficulty: today is the first day of my holiday. Can your work experience wait until the beginning of July?
No, I will not pretend that your second question never existed! I will simply tell you honestly that a spiritual teacher made of me is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. If only one could take a short course in spiritual mentorship! They probably even exist somewhere: one editor I know told me that the diocesan council has conceived the idea of preparing catechists at an accelerated rate. Only, I fear, what they teach on those courses is quite, quite not what is needed! And what is needed? If only one knew . . .
But neither do I want to say ‘no’ to you, because with my ‘no’ our strange friendship of old and young will end. True, I am not very old, and you are not very little. There is much that is childish in you, but in your childishness there is none of the infantilism of our time, which, I know, makes you sick too—and that is so wonderful! There, I will not praise you any more, or I am afraid I will put the evil eye on it.
I propose a compromise. A guru made of me is worthless, but I am ready to be an older comrade to you, who now and then gives some useful advice. Does that suit?
Write, ring—I will always be glad.

Uncle Oleg

Having sent the letter, I discovered that in the meantime a short message had come through. The message, judging by its style, was from Mefodyev, to whom yesterday, as a simple gesture of politeness, I had given my business card. So he had made use of it . . .

Dear Oleg Valeryevich! Hristina is very concerned about the state in which she found you. Would it be possible for you to visit my humble refuge one of these days—namely, the offices of Cyril and Methodius? You may, of course, refuse. But your refusal will be the stone in place of bread, the serpent in place of fish, laid in the hand extended to you—and the hand of a friend, not an enemy. S. I. M.

I have exaggerated nothing: it was precisely in this style that this man wrote his short messages. The commas, of course, were all placed where they needed to be. Handfuls of commas, unlike Karlusha, he did not offer me, and in general he displayed no capacity for humour. That capacity did not fit into his large and dignified body.
My mood sank a little. I could have ignored the message—even added the sender to a blacklist, so as never to hear of him again. But to do so would, I suppose, have meant breaking the last little thread that connected me to Kristina, since it was precisely this great big fellow whom my ex-wife had chosen as her confidant. I did not want to break that thread . . . And what is the good of putting things off?
Having braced myself, I rang Mefodyev back and arranged that I would call at the publishing house after midday.

11

The door of the ‘doll’s house’ opened, letting out Dina, who said goodbye to the hostess and only waved to me from a distance. Darya came up to my bench.
‘Come along, I will feed you porridge!’ she suggested. ‘A crust of bread was still lying about somewhere too . . .’
‘How much will I owe you for the porridge?’ I asked, partly in jest and partly in earnest.
‘Oh, you fool!’ the hostess sighed instead of an answer. ‘Dinka was right, it seems, when she told me you were a perfect little fool . . .’

‘You made short work of Dina!’ I remarked over breakfast.
‘Uh-huh,’ Darya Arkadyevna responded indefinitely. ‘Not even forty minutes . . .’
‘And . . . what is her problem?’ I ventured to ask. Darya looked at me with doubt, frowning slightly.
‘Forgive me!’ I corrected myself at once. ‘It’s not my business, probably.’
‘True, it’s not your business . . . One must not speak to one person about another's ailments. But neither do I know how to be: I ought to warn you, after all, if you should suddenly become . . . interesting to her. So . . . so I will tell you nothing at all—but you have probably guessed as it is?’
I nodded, though not quite confidently. We were silent for a little.
‘Ah, people!’ Darya exclaimed temperamentally. ‘You are all looking for something, trying to find the secret of how not to be born again, of how to jump off this carousel! That is the chief root! Whoever conquers that desire, the rest will be easy for him.’
‘Can it really . . . be conquered at all?’ I enquired with doubt.
‘Not by everyone!’ Darya admitted. ‘Not by everyone, or the world would have ended. Not by everyone, but by those to whom it is given.’
‘And what methods are there . . . if not to conquer it fully, then at least to reduce . . . this desire?’ I went on asking.
‘Are you asking out of pure curiosity, or does it trouble you too?’ Darya clarified, a little impertinently (though, I thought, ‘impertinently’ fits badly here—no one calls a doctor impertinent when he asks you to take off your shirt). I blushed. ‘There are a thousand and one methods. And all of them do not work—or rather, they work badly, they wear out. No sooner does a man try some method, no sooner does he settle on it, than he grows proud of it—and you must begin again. Best of all is not to admit it at all, not even the smallest thought. Precisely what is said in the Gospel about the Princes of the desert. God has spared me, Oleg Valeryevich—I have not lived the life of the flesh, and so I know only half of the burning quality of this desire. There is no merit of mine in it. How then am I to give advice to those who have drunk the cup to the full? Their struggle is harder . . . I only know that if the desire pushes one to sin, then one must struggle: fall a thousand times, rise a thousand times. And then perhaps on the thousand-and-first you will hold out. But in general, make it up with your Kristina anew! There will be fewer of these desires, and perhaps God will send you another child . . .’
I sighed and explained my sigh:
‘I would be glad to make it up with her! But so far it is not working, because—’
‘—because you do not want to live with her the old way,’ she finished for me. ‘And you do not know how to live the new way.’
‘Oh, how precisely you see the heart of the matter every time, and how two words suffice you to sketch it out . . . Darya Arkadyevna, before I leave, may I ask your advice on one more question?’ (My companion nodded.) ‘You remember Karlusha? She sent me a very amusing letter . . .’
‘She?’ Darya was surprised. ‘I thought it was a boy.’
‘That is just the thing—so did I . . . And in this letter, which I have, to be honest, already answered . . . But, in fact, read it yourself!’ After a second’s hesitation, I held out my telephone to her.
‘Who would have told me that I would share personal letters with her!’ I thought. ‘I did not even let Kristina read my letters. So now one would understand Mefodyev, who is “concerned about my state”! Will I really look at my present self in a couple of years and marvel at how I could have reached such blind gullibility, and discover in myself a befuddled cultist?’
‘Why are you giving me other people’s letters to read?’ Darya reproached me gently.
‘She is almost a girl still!’ I explained in an apologetic tone. ‘That is why I am giving it: so as not to do any harm . . .’
‘You say anyway that you have already answered her, so is it worth . . . You make me do foolish things . . .’
Darya Arkadyevna read Karolina’s letter with a smile on her face, and, finishing, laughed with a ringing girlish laugh.
‘And you will probably ask me what to answer her?’ she enquired merrily. ‘I will advise you nothing, no-thing! Whatever I advised, I would not guess right anyway . . . Only look out!’ She suddenly wagged her finger at me. ‘Do you not guess how most such cases end, when the disciple and the teacher are of different sexes?’
‘Surely the relations of Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita ended in nothing of the kind?’ I objected. ‘And, I venture to note, your relations with the Prince too?’
‘How do you know they ended in nothing of the kind?’ she glanced at me slyly.
‘Darya Arkadyevna, you are frightening me,’ I was taken aback. ‘That is, I am not at all going to poke my long nose where it does not belong, but you yourself said that you were not in love with him for a single minute, not a single second . . .’
‘I said it, and I say it now—I did not deceive you. And yet, had he proposed to marry me then, I would have agreed without a thought.’
‘Why?!’
‘Why? Out of a wish to be useful. Out of fidelity, out of obedience. Each carries his own cross; this one is no worse than others.’
‘But how—without love?’ I marvelled.
‘Without love, is it? Ah, Oleg Valeryevich, how little is still clear to you . . . Such fidelity to a teacher is sometimes very tender, very much like the relations between lovers. In it, of course, desire is absent—and thank God, otherwise it would have turned into vulgarity. But out of fidelity a person is ready for anything . . . No, the Prince never looked at me as a woman. And it could so easily have happened: stretch out your hand and take it. But he was a Prince, not a robber! Afterwards, at different times, two men proposed to me, and both times to no purpose. And I do not regret it, not in the least! I have not found a woman’s happiness—apparently I shall not find it in this lifetime—but my happiness is of another kind: fine, unnoticed, interesting. I am a special flower on the bed: not bright and not fragrant, but with long roots, and those roots touch deep lakes and underground rivers that almost no one knows about, and it is good that no one knows, and why should others know? Will you really forbid me to be such?’
I had only opened my mouth to ask about that shuddering ‘apparently I shall not find it in this lifetime’, when she added in a different tone:
‘Go on, go, go! You have things to do, and I am keeping you: shame on me. . .’

12

‘Hello, my dear, precious man!’ Savely Ivanovich boomed when I entered his study. (‘Who, I wonder, gave him the right to call me dear and precious?’ a vexed thought flashed. ‘True, with him it is not out of malice, not for the sake of deception, but precisely out of friendliness. But how lightweight . . .’) ‘What a relief!’ he rumbled, extending his hand to me. ‘I had already stopped expecting you . . . But do sit down, do sit down!’
‘I will not beat about the bush,’ Mefodyev continued almost at once, as soon as I had landed on the same short sofa on which I had sat the previous Saturday. ‘Hristina is frightened that you have fallen under the influence of a certain bad woman. At first we thought it was just . . . hussar-like, with you! But we have realised that it is not: this woman, if your ex-wife is to be believed, dictates to you the norms and rules of life! You cannot praise her enough now; you see her as a holy woman and a mother abbess . . . And I, dearest Oleg Valeryevich, know her name, I do! Or rather, I guess it! Here, test my powers of guessing? Dorothea Arkadyevna Smirnova. Correct?’
I nodded somewhat taken aback, asking aloud the obvious:
‘How did you work it out?’
‘Why, I am a researcher of cults, a “cult-watcher”!’ Mefodyev explained readily. ‘Not of course such a cult-watcher as Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin—I do not fly so high—I am interested more in the practical side of the question, in terms of regional studies . . . I know all the cults in our region! And there is no woman leader anywhere! Except for one small Buddhist group—but to suspect you of sympathies for Buddhists would be wild!—and then there is . . . Mother, hm, Dorothea. I quickly cracked your puzzle with “Bogdana”.’
‘A cult is, it follows, the official, state definition of her activity?’ I clarified, thinking to myself, ‘Why exactly would it be “wild” to suspect me of sympathies for Buddhists? Does he really know so much about me as to decide so arbitrarily for me what I ought to believe in?’
‘No, no, no!’ my companion waved his hands. ‘There are no official definitions here, and the state, if you want to know, hardly uses the word “cult” at all! Only we, sinners . . . And what definition is one to find for her, if she has not even notified the authorities of the creation of a religious group? She lives unnoticed, quieter than water, lower than grass, as we say. And meanwhile, some on the diocesan council consider that it is precisely she who is one of our most serious . . . opponents!’
‘It cannot be!’ I could not restrain an exclamation.
‘And very much it can! Did you know that the former church warden of the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa has left the parish and joined her ranks? Semyon Grigoryevich Kachinsky, if the surname interests you. What will become of us if things go on like this?’
‘No, I did not know . . . At the Vvedensky Convent, on the contrary, I was advised to visit her, though!’ I put on a show of na;ve surprise.
‘And who precisely advised you such an . . .’ He evidently wanted to say ‘imbecility’, but restrained himself. ‘. . . Such an ill-considered act?’
‘I do not remember the name,’ I evaded, realising that I had said too much.
‘You think badly of us, Oleg Valeryevich, you suspect Stalinism in our methods! One simply wants to know who is handing out such advice there.’
‘I keep telling you, I do not remember! And they did not introduce themselves to me either.’
‘The devil knows what is going on at the Vvedensky,’ he swore. ‘That is, forgive me for the “devil”, I am to blame! We take these things close to heart, living in the world, and wear ourselves out before our time . . . I am bringing my whole conversation to one question, which is not easy for me to ask, but which I am obliged to ask! I ask you, as a Russian and Orthodox man: to what extent are you now dependent on Dorothea Arkadyevna? What of your convictions and the freedom of your conscience have you already managed to sacrifice? How far has your indoctrination gone?’
I fell to thinking.
Mefodyev’s questions were exceptionally barefaced. They automatically deprived me of all agency in the matter of faith, declared me a blockhead, a schoolboy who had reached for an improper pleasure, stepped off the reliable path and plopped into a ditch. Nothing could be easier than to say all this out loud and quarrel with him for good right now. But . . . Kristina again! In the second place, to quarrel at once would have been unwise: who knows what else the editor-in-chief of an Orthodox publishing house might be useful for? And, in the end, I was not an enemy of Orthodoxy! So why should I suddenly sign myself up among the enemies?
‘Darya Arkadyevna . . . helped me in a difficult hour of my life,’ I began, weighing each word.
‘In what way, forgive me?’ Mefodyev cut in. ‘What, does she conduct a psychological practice without the appropriate education?’
‘Wait, Savely Ivanovich, let me speak!’ I interrupted him with displeasure. ‘I am, after all, sharing with you—consider it as between friends—and I might share nothing at all. I might walk out of that door right now and never come back.’ He blinked foolishly: had such an obvious thought really not occurred to him? Or had none of the ‘children of God’ ever spoken to him like that? ‘In a difficult hour of my life, I say, but with the content of our further conversations you will be disappointed. We discussed poetry, the memories of youth, children’s fairy tales . . .’
‘Poetry?’ My companion was astonished. ‘The memories of youth?’
‘Precisely so.’
‘Well, she really ought to recall her youth: how she, a pupil of an Orthodox gymnasium, was betrothed to a future priest, a very decent and good-looking young man—and shamefully, in the most swinish manner, abandoned him, practically ran away from the wedding, to give herself over to her . . . occult experiments!’
‘Even a good-looking one?’ I could not restrain a question.
‘Very! They showed him to me in a general photograph of that year’s graduating class—true, I haven’t met him personally, and I don’t know how the poor fellow’s life turned out afterwards . . .’
‘And what more, indeed, could the wench have wanted,’ I commented ironically. My timidity had completely flown. My companion was probably not a bad man, but this good man, with all his ‘religious farsightedness’, had failed to distinguish the truth from a legend invented by a seventeen-year-old girl. And he laid claim, incidentally, to spiritual leadership! The legend could not fail to have grown material, I suddenly understood. It was simply necessary to invent a seminarian, a good and sweet boy, for otherwise what came out? That the girl had made a fool of an entire institution with grown-up Orthodox ladies and gents, had run away from supervision, had lived for a month and a half in a flat rented for her by a dubious person, at whose lessons the future matushkas, the support and hope of the nation, commit a lesbian coming-out! Ah, what mugs . . .
‘That is just what I am saying!’ the editor-in-chief agreed, not hearing any irony in my voice.
‘Savely Ivanovich!’ I decided to go on the offensive. ‘Everything you say is fair, only if one considers the group of Dorothea Arkadyevna—and I am not even sure that there is a group—I repeat, only if one considers her group a modern cult, that is, a certain community that has broken away from the dominant Church and interprets its teaching crookedly and awry. As for me—and I say this as a lawyer, note!—first, I am not sure that religious activity is being conducted at all. Such activity has specific markers, and the determination of whether these markers are present is a matter of legal action, not of our abstract reasonings here. If, however, we acknowledge that a certain community does exist, then who told you that what is before us is precisely a Christian community?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mefodyev blinked foolishly again. ‘What else?’
‘Anything at all! Today, for instance, Dorothea Arkadyevna was telling me about the “carousel of being” and about how the final victory over the sexual urge allows one to “jump off” it. What is that if not Buddhism, with its wheel of samsara? Well, or Hinduism: I am not strong in Oriental studies . . .’
‘Interesting things she tells you: so that is what sort of “literature” and what “days of youth” you conduct your conversations about . . .’
‘I will leave your comment without attention. If Darya Arkadyevna follows Hinduism, then let the chief Hindu of our region, whatever his name may be, grieve over whether her group is a cult or not!’
Mefodyev shook his head.
‘There is sense in this!’ he admitted. ‘Though it does not fit in my head: the daughter of Arkady Venediktovich—and not a Christian! A disgrace . . . So far, Oleg Valeryevich, in your reasonings I see only games of the intellect, the weaving of words of an advocate who has for some reason undertaken to defend his client at any cost—at the cost even of her departure from the bosom of Christianity!’
‘Well, declare her anathema, then . . . Are we already in a courtroom, that you see an advocate in me? I am not obliged to convince you of anything, am I?’ I objected. ‘I am not convinced of anything either. Savely Ivanovich, I am not a philosopher, not a mystic, not a seminarian, and not a preacher! Not a na;ve twenty-year-old boy who, if you show him “Om” on a T-shirt, is already drooling. Not an Orthodox old lady, with all due respect to them. I am a lawyer! And Dorothea Arkadyevna’s activity interests me in large part in my professional capacity.’
‘I would like to believe it!’ I was told. ‘Frankly speaking, it is still hard to believe . . .’
I barely restrained myself from advising him to keep to himself any anxieties about me, which did not interest me in the slightest. Instead I dropped, as if by the way:
‘Well, what if the daughter of Arkady Venediktovich turns out in the end to be Orthodox of the purest water, and you are fighting with a person who will yet become an ornament of the Church? Is that not written: his own received him not?’
Mefodyev spread his hands, making a sour face: as much as to say, all is in the hands of God.
‘Let us suppose,’ I continued, ‘that I manage to obtain one of the “sacred texts” of this group. Imagine that such a text falls into the hands of specialists—into yours, say. Would these specialists not be able to answer a simple question: “What is before us?” And indeed: what precisely is before us? The work of a deeply Orthodox author? A sectarian scripture? A text having no relation to Christianity at all? Or perhaps a fairy tale for children?’
‘And are there really . . . chances that you might manage to obtain . . . this document?’ the editor-in-chief asked, looking at me with doubt. Ah, if only he knew that ‘this document’ was already stored in the memory of my phone . . .
I, imitating him, spread my hands:
‘God knows! I can promise nothing. But I will try to keep you informed of what happens. Will that not move us forward towards understanding what sort of phenomenon Dorothea Arkadyevna represents?’
‘It will move us forward, it will, dearest Oleg Valeryevich, of course it will . . . Perhaps it will give the possibility of taking measures with regard to her too . . .’
‘Or, on the contrary, of understanding that before you is not an enemy but a friend, and, rejoicing that yet another friend has been found, of publishing a good book of hers,’ I put in. ‘We are striving to be objective, are we not? It’s not our task, surely, to condemn, to brand and to “take measures” by all means?’
‘Of course!’ he agreed. ‘Of course.’
We exchanged a couple more unimportant phrases and at last shook each other’s hands in farewell. I cannot say how sincere our smiles were at that parting.

13

Having returned home and hurriedly lunched, I set about a task familiar to a lawyer: I read deeply into the text of laws on my laptop screen, studied articles devoted to particular law-enforcement practice, paced the room, thought . . .
I had offered the Gospel to Mefodyev, of course, in the heat of the moment. But what, really, could his verdict turn out to be? Precisely one of the four already named in the course of our conversation: an Orthodox book, sectarian rubbish, a non-Christian text, a fairy tale.
And indeed the first and the last of these would have been convenient for him to publish. So let Cyril and Methodius include the Gospel in its editorial portfolio! He had offered, after all, that I continue composing a little fairy tale and find an illustrator for it.
Or the editor-in-chief might decide that what was before him was a book with no relation to Christianity whatsoever. Well, let him come to that conclusion and leave Darya in peace: and that is not to be sneezed at, as they say.
What would happen if Mefodyev saw in the Prince’s little book a false-teaching, pseudo-Christian, and generally God-opposed writing? It would be unpleasant, but in the end, the world does not converge on Savely Ivanovich. His view would turn out to be merely the private opinion of a single Orthodox clergyman, and even of a clergyman ‘in the reserve’. (Forgive me, ‘at rest’.) He would not be pronouncing his ‘Fie!’ on behalf of the whole Russian Orthodox Church! Can one find something good even in such an outcome? One can: I would know that the spiritual father of my ex-wife is a stupid, short-sighted, limited man; that he is not a friend. And what is that to me? Precisely nothing: ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil veles. The thought of a reunion with Kristina, who hangs on his every word, would then have to be buried, but that unpleasant finality would probably turn out to be better than an uncertainty which, whichever way you turn it, is still more unpleasant.
There is, true, another side to the matter. Having received yet another confirmation that the group gathered around Darya is, in his terminology, a ‘cult’, the editor of Cyril and Methodius, and after him all his ecclesiastical superiors, would no longer restrain themselves in . . . In what? Let us leave aside the thought of stupid hooligan tricks: that would be beneath such dignified people. Can the gentlemen of the diocesan council harm my acquaintance in the legal field?
Darya does not conduct religious activity. Or does she? That depends on how to look at it . . . What if one day all her ‘guests’, including me, were to gather at the same time? If she inadvertently turned to all those gathered with an instruction—then such an instruction could already be interpreted as a sermon. And the home ‘chapel’? Yes, it is a private chapel, a chapel for one person, a personal prayer space—but just try explaining that to some short-sighted police officer! And minors? She did tell me about a ‘very young girl’ among her pupils . . . What if the parents of that girl begin to write denunciations to every authority?
In my ‘legalist’s mind’ a thought ripened: Darya Arkadyevna needs to be safeguarded from possible future claims. And the best way for her to safeguard herself is to ‘come out of the underground’, to create a religious group in the official manner, with notification to the department of the Ministry of Justice and the receipt of a corresponding reply from the state body. Thank goodness it is not at all difficult to do that nowadays! Such a newly created religious group need not be near-Orthodox at all, nor is it obliged to be Christian. Then let the diocesan council sit there having got nothing for its trouble. It would be hard to convince my acquaintance of the usefulness of all these papers, but papers rule the adult world. And so my profession would turn out not to be useless . . .
Having made up my mind, I dialled the number of ‘one of the chief opponents of the diocese’.
‘Darya Arkadyevna, I have probably been wearing thin my welcome,’ I began, skipping the greeting. ‘You get too much of me lately, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t,’ the voice answered in the receiver. 'When you tire me, I will say so, I will not be shy. What has happened to you?’
‘There are important thoughts I want to share.’
‘Then come over, do not drag it out! If you are in the car, then pick me up, please, from the bus stop. I am standing here and getting soaked in the rain.’

14

I began to set out my thoughts already in the car, glancing now and then at my companion to see what impression my words made. She was frowning.
‘I do not like any of this,’ she admitted when I had finished speaking. ‘I am not conducting any “religious activity”. Nonsense . . . Why are you moulding me into . . . a cult leader,  Oleg Valeryevich!’
‘Other people are capable of thinking otherwise, Darya Arkadyevna!’
‘Let them think whatever their little souls please!’
‘But legal consequences may also follow!’ I explained. My companion gave a broken sigh, but answered nothing.
I decided to come at it from another direction.
‘May I . . . ask you why it was precisely the Prince who was dismissed from your gymnasium?’
‘He was not dismissed, he left of his own accord . . .’
‘Let us not be literalists. Only because of the Rose? Or rather, because of the disappearance of a minor? By the way, did the Prince really “abduct” her?’
‘Of course not! She herself ran out of the school, all in tears, when Olga announced at the class meeting that the Beetle’s unhealthy feelings for the Rose had apparently been mutual.’
‘And were they mutual?’
‘For a time . . .’
‘Hm!’ I grunted. 'Be that as it may, publicly pointing out another’s vice—especially one that is already in the past—is not the cleverest way of spiritually educating a sinner. It is surprising that your little Rose did not do herself in from all that “friendly criticism”.’
‘She might well have done herself in, who knows,’ Darya remarked. ‘If only—’
‘—if your teacher had not intercepted her somewhere outside the school,’ I guessed. ‘And that, by the way, changes a great deal! Perhaps he did not even love her, but simply pitied her?’
‘I cannot tell you, Oleg Valeryevich!’ my companion responded. ‘I did not ask, after all. It is awkward to ask one’s teacher about such things. And somehow it was not important to me . . .’
‘I understand! But whatever those two spoke of, late that evening the Rose did return to the gymnasium, correct?’
‘Correct!’ Darya confirmed. ‘Olga had raised everyone to their feet before that and flew at her from the threshold: where, she said, have you been, my little miss? We have telephoned all the morgues and all the hospitals! And she declared: I was with my beloved, that is what . . .’
‘Well, I never . . . What, did your little Rose not understand anything at all?’
‘She was, how shall I put it . . . She was a little drunk with happiness. And there was defiance in that, you understand?’
‘In the style of “Old husband, dread husband / Can cut me, can burn me!”?’
‘Yes! What a fitting line from Pushkin, how well it explains . . . And in the morning Olga went to the headmistress with her nasty “collective letter”, which only four of our class did not sign, and I was among them. Or was it called the “minutes of the meeting”?’
‘Meeting minutes, just fancy!' I marvelled. ‘Someone was legally well prepared . . .’
‘Yes, exactly . . . In that paper the class “expressed a resolute protest” against the actions of a teacher who, in an Orthodox gymnasium, was carrying on propaganda for Western sodomitic morals.’
‘How, forgive me?’
‘Why repeat it!’ Darya responded angrily. ‘You heard it all anyway.’
‘I wonder by what path they arrived at that astonishing formulation?’
‘The thing is, Ale . . . the Prince, at the beginning of March, brought to a lesson an article about sodomites in British schools . . .’
‘By the way, why did he do that?’ I interrupted. ‘In his place I would have been more cautious.’
‘How is it that you don’t understand!’ Darya grew heated. ‘In order to ask questions! In order to discuss why sodomy is a sin, and why it is bad when the state surrenders before sin! So that, when they have children of their own, these former schoolgirls might explain the same thing to them in the simple words of the Russian language, and not refer to patristic experience! Which is, incidentally, absent . . .’
‘A noble thought, but, judging by the look of things, not much came of his undertaking...'
‘Why not much? I understood it perfectly!’
‘Yes, but . . . it seems your Prince did not draw a clear boundary between spiritual mentorship and the work of an ordinary teacher for ordinary children in a secondary school,’ I objected.
‘Does it exist, that boundary, Oleg Valeryevich? Perhaps many of our troubles come from the fact that we are always drawing such boundaries?’
‘I do not know, I am not a teacher . . . And, as I recall, a couple of weeks later the Beetle, who had been breathing unevenly towards the Rose, stood up during a lesson and declared that she was an open lesbian—and so your class connected two points with a straight line. By the way, why did she do that?’
‘Out of jealousy, of course!’
‘Yes, yes . . . Look, Darya Arkadyevna! Your friends—’
‘You have found a nice word for it!’
‘—very well, your classmates clearly did not understand what harm they were doing, correct? Had you asked them at that moment why they were signing the minutes, they would have answered you quite sincerely that they were defending the Orthodox faith from alien filth. They probably thought so themselves. And meanwhile it turned out that they had slandered a man! And that slander had consequences. Can you vouch that no one will ever want to slander you? My God, they have already slandered you!’ I suddenly realised. ‘Mefodyev was telling me today that you ran away from the wedding crown from a seminary graduate, broke his heart, and ruined the poor boy’s life. And there will be more! And you want to meet slander completely unarmed? Like a little girl with a plastic spade in her hand?’
‘Whatever must happen will happen anyway,’ my companion spoke stubbornly. ‘A disciple is not greater than his teacher, and if they thlander... slander me, I will even be happy: that means my pupil was not entirely worthless! You know, I am glad that it turned out precisely so then! Oh . . . may I open the window? Even my heart is now aching from these recollections . . .’
I helped her lower the window on her side and added speed, casting uneasy glances to the right now and then. Darya Arkadyevna looked paler than usual. I realised, with belated repentance, that the ‘getting soaked in the rain’ she had mentioned to me on the telephone had not been a figure of speech: standing in the rain at the bus stop, she really had got wet. She would catch cold next . . .

15

In the cooled kitchen of the ‘doll’s house’ its mistress sank helplessly into one of the two wicker chairs, while I set about lighting the stove, on the grounds of being the only healthy person. Darya watched my efforts somewhat mockingly.
‘Open the vent, and pull out the damper, or there will be no draught,” she explained at last in a quiet voice. “The damper is the shutter on the chimney. So, and now take that piece of cardboard and blow it up . . . It has caught nicely. I agree.’
‘Sorry, what?’ I did not even understand at once.
‘I agree to this . . . group of yours. If the matter concerned only me, I would never agree! You are a serious man, Oleg Valeryevich, a lawyer, a professional, eight years older than I am . . .’
‘And I feel half a century younger,’ I admitted.
‘There, there, all nonsense. I believe you. I believed you just now, watching how touchingly you bustled about. Perhaps you too are mistaken, but if you, a specialist, are mistaken, then it is even less for me to sort out. What will be needed from me?’
‘I am very glad!’ I said sincerely, and explained: all I needed were the telephone numbers of her disciples. The minutes of the founding assembly of the group I was ready to draw up myself, and I myself intended to send them to the supervisory body. Darya held out to me her button telephone with the ‘contacts’ open and asked something at once offensive and incredibly touching:
‘How much will I owe you?’
‘A million,’ I muttered. ‘How are you . . . How are you not ashamed to offer me money!’
‘Well, you were not ashamed to offer me money for oat porridge . . . Not at all? Thank you, dear man!’
The firewood crackled cosily, visible through the heat-resistant glass door.
‘Only a small thing remains,’ I remarked. ‘We need to decide what the new community will be called and what religion it professes.’
‘Think up any name,’ Darya suggested, still pale. 'Any at all, I do not care. I trust you have enough taste not to write in these— minutes, is it?—not to write in the minutes “The Order of Transvestite Fire-Worshippers”. “A Flock of Sheep” is also not necessary.’
‘No,’ I smirked, 'I would not have thought of that . . . Would you . . . would you read me something from the Gospel? Perhaps it will put us in mind of what to call it.’
‘Better you read to me,’ she asked. ‘If only it is not difficult for you and if the handwriting is legible.’
‘Not difficult, and the handwriting is legible too, but I, my Lady Dorothea, do not much like how you look. Does this happen to you often?’
‘Nothing,’ Darya responded. ‘It is simply the blood pressure: it sometimes falls to indecent numbers. Read!’

16

The Chapter on the Retinue

1. One Prince has no need even of a Rose, as he has no need of anyone in the world. ‘You are a tsar, so live alone’ was proclaimed of the Prince too.
2.  Around another Prince a retinue gathers.
3. A true Prince does not seek a retinue, does not grieve when it leaves, does not try to buy it with fine words. Those who must be bribed are not a retinue but a mob of hirelings.
4. Into the retinue of the Prince, as the Author of the Tale proclaimed, enter Little Sheep and Foxes.
5. A Little Sheep is a guileless and simple creature. A Little Sheep follows where it is told, and grazes where its peg is driven in.
6. One should not consider the Little Sheep very kind. The Little Sheep waits for a miracle, like a spring in the desert, and is angry when it does not see the miracle.
7. Some Rams clash and butt each other hard with their horns. Sometimes even the Prince gets it from them. So did the King of Kings get it from the Jewish Rams.
8. Sometimes Little Sheep are stolen by the beasts of the desert, of whom we shall speak separately.
9. One need not drive the Little Sheep away, nor need one hope in them. The dignity of the Prince is not measured by the number of Little Sheep, for he is a Prince, not an owner of a flock. More, perhaps, there is nothing to say of this breed.
10. The Fox is another matter.
11. Who is the Fox? The one who is tamed, though his heart has remained wild.
12. Not every Fox is tamed quickly. He outlives his doubts and his distrust. Sometimes the Fox bites the hand extended to stroke him. And yet, taming a Fox is a noble endeavour.
13. Another Fox recognises the Prince at once, in whatever guise he appears. So it has been, and so it shall be.
14. The Fox is faithful and clever, courageous and persistent. The Fox is a good friend and a good defender.
15. How many Foxes were there in the earthly retinue of the King of Kings? Let each count for himself.
16. ‘Draw me a Little Sheep!’ the Prince asked the Aviator. But not ‘Draw me a Fox!’ A Fox cannot be drawn: no one knows where to get a suitable pen and pencil, and there are no patterns by which a Fox is drawn. A Fox can only be found.
17. May every Prince meet his own Fox!
18. It is a blessing to be a Fox before the transformation into a Prince! The young have ceased to become Foxes. And Princes too have almost disappeared.
19. Such are the visible friends of the Prince. There are also invisible ones, but of them the Prince cannot tell anyone. Neither can we tell of them.
20. The Serpent is neither friend nor enemy. On the Serpent, a separate chapter follows.

17

The Chapter on the Meeting with the Serpent

1. The world is a fair of vulgar vanity and a cemetery of truth. Life in the world is hard for everyone. It is hard for the Prince too.
2. Here is a dignity that distinguishes the Prince from the common man: the Prince is always ready for the meeting with the Serpent and for the return to his Planet.
3. Most are horrified by the Serpent. But a few, a very few, wait for the meeting with it from childhood, considering that meeting the highest happiness of life.
4. Some will meet the Serpent quickly. Others will have to wear out more than a dozen pairs of shoes before the meeting.
5. They say the King of Kings conquered the Serpent. But the Prince is not the King of Kings. He is only a Prince, and a Little one at that.
6. One cannot run from the Serpent, and no one will escape the meeting with it.
7. Nor should one hurry the Serpent, and worst of all is to buy serpent’s venom at the chemist’s.
8.  Those who have used serpent’s venom before the time of the meeting with the Serpent end up on the Planet of Sorrow. Life there is dreary and joyless. The most monotonous desert is more cheerful than the Planet of Sorrow!
9. Let the Prince cease to fear the Serpent, since no one can avoid acquaintance with it! Let him remember it constantly. This memory will fill him with a great royal freedom.
10. There is an advantage in the life of the Prince: he hears the quiet rustle of the Serpent before the meeting occurs, and he often knows the time.
11. Another Prince learns to speak with the Serpent. The Serpent is a keeper of wisdom, so many secrets can be found out from it.
12. Let no Prince despair! Let him walk only straight on, and he will soon reach his well.
13. For the one who has despaired, there is a last remedy: the Prayer to the Serpent.
14. The benefits of this prayer cannot be counted: it grants new strength, cures despondency, and heals fears.
15. Such is the effect only of a sincere prayer, in which one believes with all one’s heart. Do not tell the prayer to everyone you meet, or you will wear it out.
16. This same Prayer to the Serpent is read before one sees it.
17. The Prayer to the Serpent is as follows.

Angel of death! Be merciful to me.

18

‘Frightening!’ I said, having finished reading the ‘Chapter on the Meeting’ and putting the notebook aside. ‘One almost wants to ask: did your Prince know how to speak with the Serpent?’
Darya nodded and added quietly:
‘He spoke with it a few days before his departure.’
‘So that is why he was certain he would not return!’ it dawned on me. ‘I thought he was simply intending to emigrate, to move to a permanent place of residence . . . Forgive me! What a blockhead I am!’
‘Yes, to a permanent one . . .’ she smiled weakly. ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveller returns.’
‘That is from Hamlet, is it not?’ I realised. ‘And you told me that you were indifferent to books.’
‘Would you like to know where all these books, images, quotations come from?’ my companion asked instead of answering. ‘From him, of course! I asked him to share the most important, the most beloved things, and he often came with a book, retold its contents, read from them, opening them at any place, explaining. These were not only literary texts, but also philosophical ones, sometimes religious ones, and his own Gospel was not the limit. Is such freedom possible in a classroom, even with the best of teachers? Almost any schoolteacher is shackled by the handcuffs of the programme. How wonderful it would be to allow every teacher to speak only of those books he loves, the ones that have grown into the depths of his heart . . .’
‘Then, I fear, many charlatans would appear in the schools?’ I suggested.
‘As though there are none now! The Prince cast seeds into my mind, and those seeds sprouted later, some much later, but all, all of them without exception! If only I could achieve such a germination rate with my seedlings!’ she laughed ringingly.
‘I observe with pleasure that you have both cheered up and gone rosy . . . And also—do you know what I am thinking about?’
‘I know,’ Darya confirmed, growing serious. ‘Of the dead girl.’
‘Yesterday my ex-wife flung it in my face: you compare her to Christ, and she is a suicide,’ I continued, nodding. ‘That is probably fair, but, my God, how hurtful! It still smarts . . .’
‘There are various reasons why a person takes his own life . . . And do you know,’ the mistress of the house said in a special voice, with a gleam in her eyes, ‘that I could take you there? Are you . . . interested?’
‘To the place the Gospel calls the Planet of Sorrow?’ I guessed, and shivered. ‘Allow me to think a little . . .’
‘I am not hurrying you!’ Darya responded. ‘I have a surge of strength right now, and it is not forever, but I am not hurrying you.’
We sat a while longer, saying nothing.
‘I am ready,’ I whispered.
In complete silence we went up to the light-room. With an almost already habitual movement I lay down on my back on the carpet and closed my eyes.

19

I am walking along a very long, not very wide footbridge, built of black stones. The footbridge has no railing at all, so that it is frightening to go near the edge. There is no more light than there is under the stars in clear weather, but the sky is overcast, a monotone grey. It is damp, raw. The fog is so thick that after four or five steps it is already hard to make out the outlines of objects. Though in this world there are not, it must be said, many objects . . . Nothing like the luminous underpainting of things, nothing like the tender watercolour colours: here everything is dense, cold, hard, and as dreary as even November nights on earth are not.
‘Kira!’ I call quietly. ‘Kira!’
I am ready for her to appear in any form, but the girl is nowhere. And indeed, is there anyone at all in this world?
Towards me, swimming out of the fog, passes and goes off into the distance the skeleton of a hedgehog the size of a large dog, paying me not the slightest attention. Perhaps that is how suicides look? Whom could one ask about this? Can one talk with the skeleton of a hedgehog?
The footbridge ends.
Now I wander across a field alongside a single row of dead trees. The air is full of sounds: now it seems to me that a marsh bird is crying in the distance, now the clang of a braking train reaches me. Sometimes I hear a murmur, like a human one; sometimes I almost make out the words, but these words do not add up into meaningful phrases.
‘Kira!’ I call again.
A carcass the size of an owl falls at my feet and crumbles into old, withered leaves.
The field too comes to an end: I run up against a brick wall and for a long time move along it. When a breach appears in the wall, I climb through it and begin to move along a narrow horizontal shaft, along which run metal pipes, rather worn. The shaft turns at an angle, becoming a hospital corridor.
The floor of the corridor is laid with chipped tiles, the walls up to shoulder height are painted with dark-green paint of the vilest shade. Every ten metres the corridor is lit by barely glowing electric lamps.
I understand what the torment of this world consists in. All the dreary spaces here stretch on and on—and in the end turn into something else, but never, never, never come to an end. There is nowhere to sit down (I recall that on the footbridge there were not even any railings), nothing on which to rest the eye, no one to talk to.
Though not quite: having stopped and listened, in the hospital corridor one can again make out the whisper of many voices. I try to speak with these voices, also dropping to a whisper, but the voices do not hear me—they do not even hear themselves. They cannot finish a single sentence.
‘Kira,’ I whisper. ‘Good Lord my God . . . Is there anyone here at all?’
The corridor throws me out onto a long wooden pier jutting far out into the sea. A fine rain is falling (just as in the world I came from, I remember).
Someone is walking towards me.
In the first moment, gladdened, I hurry forward. But my gladness does not last long: it is not Kira.
I stop a few paces from the Stranger. Before me is a tall man in a suit, tie, raincoat, hat. His face is devoid of all expression.
‘Good evening,’ I greet him.
‘Good evening,’ the Stranger answers, and slightly raises his hat in greeting. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
His voice is at once indifferent and weighty: with such voices old judges pronounce sentences.
‘A girl who died eighteen years ago, whose name was—’
‘I know whom you are speaking of,’ the Stranger interrupts me. ‘She is not here,’ he adds without a shadow of doubt.
‘How do you know?’ I ask mistrustfully.
‘Believe me, I know. Come with me.’
I obey, and for a long time we walk along the pier. The Stranger raises the collar of his raincoat with a domestic movement.
‘You asked me how I know,’ he says in his voice of an old judge.
‘True,’ I confirm. ‘So how?’
‘I am the Angel of Death.’
Missing a step, I catch him up.
‘Kira is not here,’ the Angel of Death continues, without turning. ‘She did not kill herself. She was killed.’
I open my mouth to ask him how exactly.
‘If you remain here another couple of minutes,’ the Angel of Death informs me without any feeling, ‘you will die too.’
With these words he roughly—and mercifully—pushes me into the black water.

20

In complete silence we went down again to the kitchen, where Darya threw a plaid over my shoulders and hurried to put the kettle on.
‘If you weren’t a spiritual teacher, I would ask you for something stronger,’ I remarked.
‘Do not hope . . . How many times have I told you: I am a craftswoman who sews trinkets, not a spiritual teacher. Shall I give you a mirror?’
‘What, is there such a ritual?’
‘No ritual at all! It is simply that all the hair on your head is standing on end.’
‘I gladly take your word for it . . . Have you, Darya Arkadyevna, never thought of running paid tours? You would make a heap of money. Money is not refunded to those who die of a heart attack.’
‘No, I have not thought of it. What a business idea going to waste . . . We will find your Kira! We will find her, do not grieve. If we have time . . .’
‘To the devil with these searches . . . And why may we not have time?’
‘I will tell you tomorrow, all right?’
‘Of course! Do not think I intend to intrude on you much longer,’ I caught myself, realising that the hostess needed to rest. ‘I will finish my tea and go.’
‘Why are we whispering, like the dead!’ Darya suddenly protested in her ordinary voice. ‘I will open the little window, all right?’
I nodded with relief.
‘Rain again,’ she remarked, opening the casement. ‘And for tomorrow they are not forecasting any . . . I have shown you the Valley of the Suicides today—perhaps, Oleg Valeryevich, you will not refuse me one request in return?’
‘Anything at all.’
‘Would you not take me with you when you drive into town?’
‘Of course I will take you. Where are you off to at nine in the evening?’
‘Well, you see, it is like this . . .’ she began to explain, a little guiltily. ‘A larch has seeded itself on my plot, completely by itself. They grow fast; it is already as tall as I am. I am afraid it will shade the neighbours and in the autumn pelt them with needles. I dug it out of the ground yesterday and put it in a plastic bucket. I meant to transplant it into the forest, but then I thought that in the forest it is not needed, and it will be cramped there . . . Perhaps there might be a little place for it in town?’
I only shook my head, marvelling at her selflessness. And at once I remembered:
‘In the courtyard of my building there grew a poplar; it was cut down this summer. A little tree would not come amiss in its place . . .’
‘Then let us take it to your courtyard!’ the hostess rejoiced. ‘May we?’

Arriving in town, we discovered that we had forgotten the spade. Or rather, had not forgotten: Darya had deliberately not brought it with her, afraid that the spade would force me to return the tool together with its owner. I was intending, in any case, to drive her home afterwards, so the delicacy was somewhat superfluous. Fortunately, I had a sapper’s shovel at home: in the autumn of last year, after the announcement of the partial mobilisation, I had packed a small tactical rucksack just in case. (A great many men all over the country did the same, so there is of course no heroism in that rucksack, and besides, it remained lying on the shelf of the wardrobe.)
Marvelling at the lightness and strength of this little shovel (it had been made in China—and when will our people learn to produce similar things? why do we create nuclear missiles and cannot make a reliable sapper’s shovel?), I dug a hole in the courtyard of my building fairly quickly. Several neighbours, returning from work, passed by, but paid no attention to our occupation, did not even turn their heads in our direction.
Darya carefully planted her charge in the hole, I covered the tree with earth, which we together lightly tamped down.
‘It is good that we are planting in the rain,’ Darya approved. ‘We will not have to water it . . .’
With a gasp, she suddenly sank to the ground, in what she was wearing (she was, true, in a raincoat and working jeans, which it is not so much of a pity to get dirty).
‘What is it?!’ I was alarmed.
‘Nothing, nothing . . . It will pass. I will sit a little . . . Oleg Valeryevich, do not worry.’
‘Oh, damn it!’ the author of these notes swore, vexed with himself and with having let himself be persuaded into this evening adventure. ‘Could we not have waited until tomorrow? We will feed every hungry hedgehog, otherwise what sort of life is it, but we do not want to take care of ourselves!’
‘Tomorrow they were forecasting clear weather—bad for planting . . .’
Picking Darya Arkadyevna up in my arms—she turned out to be unexpectedly light—I carried her to my flat and laid her on the sofa. I rummaged in the home medicine cupboard and dug out citramon, which, among other things, raises blood pressure. I brought her two tablets (she, smiling weakly, took one—more, I think, so as not to upset me). I put the coffee on to brew.
‘I do not like coffee, thank you . . . I am already better, see?’
‘Then perhaps it is worth learning to like it!’ I objected in the tone of a reasonable guardian. ‘Some things must be done past “I don’t want to”, Darya Arkadyevna!’
My sermon on the theme that some things must be done past ‘I don’t want to’ was interrupted by a ring at the door.

21

Standing on the threshold—you could not have invented it if you had tried!—was Kristina in person. With a sour expression, I opened the door to her.
‘Sorry I am late,’ my ex-wife announced as though nothing had happened. ‘I have two reasons for the visit. The first: I—Perhaps you will let me in, after all? Thank you. The first: I want to collect Mira’s things and books—any that you do not mind sharing. I am a mother, not a machine for giving birth, and I have feelings too, imagine that . . . The second: I would like to talk with you about—’
‘I have guests,’ I interrupted. Kristina’s eyebrows shot up, and an ironic smile drew itself on her face.
‘Really?’ she clarified. ‘At half past nine? So you are combining?’
‘Combining what exactly?’
‘The spiritual with the carnal . . . Do not be upset, then I will only take the toys.’
‘For two years you did not remember them, and suddenly you have remembered . . .’
While Kristina struggled with her boots, I brought out to her a box of the few toys remaining from our daughter (most we had given away). Yes, it was not very polite not to invite her in, but arriving without warning on her side was also not very polite.
‘Well and good, thank you for bringing them out,’ she thanked me imperturbably. ‘I will take this, this, and this. And there will remain for you . . . well, let the alphabet blocks remain for you. You already made off with the fox without asking. Do you think I have forgotten?’
‘Surely we are not going to fight over a fox now?’ I asked bitterly.
‘Not at all! No one was going to fight. We both are civilised, decent, modern people . . . Hurrah, I have finally got it off! You see, the zip sticks . . .’
I had only meant to remark to her that if she did not wear boots in summer, the zip would not stick either, when my ex-wife, having thrown off the second boot, swiftly went through into the sitting room. I did not manage to stop her—and how, one asks, is one to stop a lady?
‘Good evening!’ I heard Kristina's loud greeting, addressed to my guest.
Belatedly I darted into the kitchen and brought out three tiny coffee cups on a tray. I set the tray on the desk. I sat down on a chair, turning towards the two women, who had settled themselves at different ends of the sofa.
They sat there looking very different from one another. Darya—so confident, so natural, even beautiful in her own home—here, in a city flat, had quite lost her colour and shrunk. In her working blouse and her slightly earth-stained jeans, Darya Arkadyevna, huddled into a corner of the sofa, was clearly losing to Kristina in her elegant skirt and exquisite cashmere pullover (add to this beautifully arranged hair and discreet but studied make-up of hers). Kristina received the cup from my hands with a caressing smile:
‘Thank you, Oleg, how sweet . . . Why have you not offered your guest any? Ah, Darya does not drink coffee? Hypertension, probably? The opposite? But coffee is precisely useful for low pressure: you ought to force yourself . . . Imagine, Darya: he almost threw me out of the flat just now, he did not want to open the door! But he came to his senses in the end: evidently you have had a beneficial influence on him: a woman—any woman—ennobles a man, after all. . .’
As though in a bad dream, I listened to Kristina’s chatter, to her questions to my guest about mutual Orthodox acquaintances. To my astonishment, Kristina knew Olga—and for a whole minute she lavished praise on her intelligence and her diligence: ah, what a fine woman Olga is, how much she does for the parish, how she loves the little children . . . You have no children of your own, have you, Darya? Then I am afraid you will not understand . . .
Why, to what end, did she need this petty triumph? That Kristina was triumphant, I did not doubt: every smile, every glance of hers thrown in my direction, seemed to say to me, ‘Open your eyes! Whom have you chosen in the end? For what have you exchanged me?’
‘Tell me, Daryushka: you studied at the Orthodox Girls’ Gymnasium, did you not?’ my ex-wife trilled like a nightingale. ‘And I already know about it from my acquaintances: it is a small world, as they say! It seems that at that gymnasium, fourteen years ago, there was some story—will you not share it with us? What, you did not follow it? What an interesting person you are: you live in your own world and do not see what is happening right under your nose! No, I, a sinner, cannot understand. But they told me that story! Now, let me try to remember . . . Well, yes: one schoolgirl, whose name was—astonishingly, her name was your name, what a coincidence!—I do not remember her surname, though . . . One schoolgirl fell in love with a fifth-year student of our seminary, so much so that she even ran to him on secret meetings at night, almost climbing down from a window on a rope. Youth is youth, as they say—but, imagine, in the end she abandoned him, when a mature man hovered into view on the horizon. A sort of ex-rocker, all in leather and studs, with the gaze of Lermontov’s demon, a smoky little bass and the slogan “I am no gift, baby, take from me what life has left”. And others say he was something of an occultist, a magician, an astrologer . . . One of those characters who multiplied in the nineties, probably: one of those, what do you call them, “Basil Ye Unvertuouse, hereditary sorcerer in the third generation, will make an aiguillette and put the evil eye on you”. Do you happen to know what an aiguillette is? It even sounds indecent . . . Whether it was an aiguillette or not, your namesake grew so attached to her sorcerer that she took him away from a friend from the gymnasium! Girls with far more striking physical endowments, but . . . love works miracles! Whatever we may understand by that word . . .
‘Naturally, the fifth-year student was given his dismissal,’ Kristina continued. ‘And the boy turned out to be a one-love man: “I need no other matushka,” said he. But he did not want to take monastic vows either. You understand: what sort of priest could he be, with neither wife nor monasticism? He was not ordained. Five years of study went down the drain—hurtful, is it not? Out of grief the boy either took to drink or smoked himself away . . . What exactly he took to, I do not know for certain, I do not want to say bad things about a man. He went off to be an artist, but found no great success. Afterwards he was seen somewhere in Petersburg, that last refuge of all the artistic bohemia. They say he now paints portraits in the street almost for food. They come out more as caricatures than portraits, but tastes vary . . .’
Darya suddenly rose from her place—I followed her with unease, to see whether she could stand on her feet.
‘I have quite forgotten that I have to go,’ she said quietly. ‘Goodbye, Oleg Valeryevich, goodbye, Kristina Viktorovna. No, do not see me out, please!’
The door in the hallway closed.
Kristina, smiling, folded her arms on her breast and was clearly about to say something mocking to me.
‘She most likely has no money for the fare,’ I spoke first, rising. ‘You will have to wait until I come back. If you leave earlier, close the door behind you, please.’

22

Darya had not managed to go far. She had not gone anywhere at all, but—Good Lord Jesus Christ!—was sitting by the newly planted larch on her knees, again right on the ground.
I went up to her. What to do next? To tower over her, as an adult over a child? Who is the child here, and who is the adult . . .
Cursing everything in the world, I sat down on my knees opposite her, copying her pose. I asked with concern:
‘Darya Arkadyevna, are you unwell again?’
‘No . . . Yes . . . No . . .’ she shaped with her lips a weak semblance of a smile. ‘And the Prince, it turns out, was a sorcerer who “made an aiguillette and put the evil eye on you”. Did you hear, Oleg Valeryevich? There I was, living to my age, and I did not know—thank you kindly, you have enlightened me . . .’
‘Forgive her, for God’s sake!’ I apologised. ‘And forgive me too.’
‘For what, you? You have done me no harm.’
‘I should not have opened the door to her, that is for what.’
‘Well, what a thing to say,’ my companion rebuked me gently. ‘How could you not open it? Kristina is your wife, even if an ex-wife, and the mother of your child, and who am I to you? Never mind, Oleg Valeryevich . . . Go home! And I will go too.’
‘Where to?’ I was taken aback.
‘For the bus,’ she explained artlessly. ‘The evening buses run late, the last one at half past eleven. Take your little spade, you forgot it. A good little spade, light . . .’
‘Let me at least drive you home!’
‘No need! I am telling you, the buses run. And Kristina will not wait long either. So . . . please go back, would you not? She will be ashamed soon, and then, who knows, everything may come right between you after all.’
‘I am not going anywhere,’ I muttered stubbornly.
‘Well, then . . . you should not. And I will go soon. I will talk with the larch, and then I will go.’
She really will leave soon, I realised. After all the good Darya has done me, my ex-wife drove her out of my flat with her gossip, and there she is, leaving. Where am I to find the words to stop her? And yet there must exist, there must exist such words.
‘Wait a couple of seconds more,’ I asked. ‘Good Lord, how is it said . . .’
‘It is not said at all,’ I was told. ‘Everything is well, I am not angry with anyone. Thank you, and thank your wife too.’
‘Thank Kristina for what?’ a voice inside me asked. ‘She is unwell, cannot you see that? And you are unwell too, if you are going to say what you have prepared. What have you got yourself into, you idiot, you silly boy! You are thirty-nine years old, you are a leading lawyer of general practice. Well, just try it, just risk it! I will remind you of this for the rest of your life, every night before sleep! So you are going to say it after all? Ah, do what you want, lost man . . .’
‘Your Highness!’ I called quietly.
Darya raised to me an astonished and warm gaze.
‘Your Highness!’ I repeated with more confidence. ‘Allow me to be your Fox!’

Part Four



1

Information on the foundations of the faith

The religious group ‘The Oasis’ professes a branch of Christianity known as ‘the Christianity of the Little Prince’. Followers of this teaching regard The Little Prince of A. de Saint-Exup;ry (and a number of other texts) not as a children’s fairy tale, but as a philosophical parable, even as a doctrinal source, guided by the words of Christ, who praised the ‘Lord of heaven and earth’ for having ‘hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes’ (Matthew 11:25). Those who profess ‘the Christianity of the Little Prince’ do not set religion against the secular authority; their faith lays upon them no obligations that hinder their life in society.

2

It was precisely the above paragraph that I placed in the fourth point of the ‘Form of Notification of the Commencement of the Activity of a Religious Group’ (RG0001), having weighed every word in it. In general, as the reader may guess, I devoted the Friday of the second week of summer to the creation (on paper) of a new religious association. It took me—with interruptions—the whole day. A more experienced person would probably have managed far more quickly, in about three hours—but what I was doing was not my speciality, and even at Voskhod I am considered a good but somewhat slow worker. (Let me add, in parentheses, that it was precisely my ‘slowness’—or rather, my thoroughness—that often saved my clients. Let me allow myself this single parenthesis—and that will be enough on the subject of my legal practice.)
First of all, I had to understand the ‘mechanics’ of the matter: they turned out not to be complicated, but understanding them took some time. After that I set about ringing Darya's disciples, having warned each in advance of the call with a short message: telephone fraudsters are many these days, after all, and we have all become mistrustful.
To each new person on the line I gave my name and briefly explained that I was calling on the instructions of Dorothea Arkadyevna Smirnova, who had yesterday given her consent to the creation of a community. Was the respected so-and-so prepared to take part in the founding assembly of the community, which would take place presumably on Sunday? Did the respected person agree to have his surname, first name, patronymic, and registered address shown in the form to be submitted to the supervisory body, in the column ‘Information on citizens belonging to the religious group’? Could the respected person answer two questions right now, without putting it off? Question one: did he vote for the founding of a religious group with the provisional and temporary name ‘The Oasis’? Question two: should Dorothea Arkadyevna Smirnova be elected leader of the group and authorised to perform all kinds of religious activity?
All this is easily and quickly written on paper, but already with Avrely, whom I had decided to ring first, certain difficulties began. Ava was not against it; he warmly welcomed the idea. But why precisely ‘The Oasis’? (I explained: it was connected with the metaphor of water in the desert from The Little Prince.) Ah, The Little Prince? How wonderful! But why not ‘The Well of Life’? No, better ‘The Well-Spring of Life’—it sounds more poetic. And he had further variants: ‘The Garden of Faith’, ‘The Garden of Hope’, ‘The Garden of Love’. (‘The Garden of Love’ was all we needed . . . Well then, better still ‘Dorothea’s Garden’, I tried to joke—but he seized on my suggestion: yes, yes, yes, precisely! ‘Dorothea’s Garden’—an astonishing name!) Also fine names for the new group, in Avrely's opinion, would be ‘Ascension’, ‘The Dawn of a New Life’, and ‘The Banner of Truth’. Why stop at trifles, then, why not ‘The Red Banner of Truth’ and ‘The Testament of Lenin’ at once . . . My own thoughts about ‘The Red Banner of Truth’ I did not, however, voice, but simply answered that the name was a working one, and the final one would be established during the founding assembly by vote. Another reason for him to come to that assembly in person. Mr Khvostov—yes, that was his surname; I do not know what guided the parents who gave him the name ‘Avrely’, and why they were not troubled that their son would be called Avrely Vitoldovich Khvostov, a Roman emperor, a Polish nobleman, and a Russian tail—Mr Khvostov confirmed with great enthusiasm he would come. But perhaps . . . on Monday? (The coming Monday fell on Russia Day and automatically became a day off.)

Kachinsky listened to me very attentively and immediately grasped the essence of the matter.
‘About time!’ he said, if not with a strain in his voice, then with a sort of grunting. ‘So you turn out to be the new church warden?’
‘Semyon Grigoryevich, I will gladly yield that post to you!’ I replied at once, afraid of wounding his ambition and quarrelling with an old man over nothing.
‘No, no, how could I, in my seventh decade . . . I am heartily grateful to you for taking all the trouble on yourself.’
Kachinsky also advised an unexpected and interesting move: to announce publicly that the meeting would take place on Sunday, and to hold it on Monday after all. Why?—I did not understand at once.
‘Are you not afraid of anyone?’ he asked me in return.
‘Whom should we be afraid of? Surely not all sorts of . . . stalwart young seminarians,’ I guessed suddenly, ‘who will come to the assembly and start shouting “Down with the cultists!” and waving their prayer beads over their heads, or whatever it is seminarians usually wave? And you expect such nastiness from . . . your former brothers in faith?’
‘But they are your former brothers in faith too, my good man,’ Kachinsky remarked to me over the phone.
‘Semyon Grigoryevich, I haven’t, it seems, broken with Orthodoxy yet . . .’
‘I haven’t broken with it either,’ he explained. ‘And Dorothea Arkadyevna, as far as I know, has not broken with it.’
‘Well, I will think about it,’ I agreed, somewhat taken aback.
Kachinsky undertook to come to the meeting and asked to be separately informed of the exact date, time and place.

With Dina I spoke longer than with the others. She could not understand what exactly I wanted from her, asked tons of clarifying questions, and towards the end of the conversation suddenly came out with:
‘Listen, Oleg! How does it happen that today you are a great brain, and yesterday morning you were a perfect fool?’
‘Why, I was pretending, Dina Yevgenyevna!’ I had to explain.
‘And why were you pretending?’
‘Because you caught me off guard with your remark about the trainers I had managed not to dirty.’
‘You spent the night at her house, from Wednesday to Thursday?’ she took the bull by the horns at once. ‘That is what I thought!’
‘Yes, in the workroom, with Darya Arkadyevna in the light-room,’ I began to justify myself shamefacedly.
‘You need not have explained that! A grown man, and you behave like a schoolboy . . . Even if a company of soldiers had been sleeping downstairs at her place, I would not have worried about her.’
I smirked and explained my smirk:
‘A company of soldiers would not fit in her little house. A squad—even that with difficulty . . .’
‘There, there, he has started being clever, a fine one you are. Are you really a disciple?’ (I confirmed that.) ‘And really a lawyer?’
‘A lawyer of general practice, though I do occasionally think about opening my own chambers . . .’
‘And really divorced?’
‘Yes—but right now I am trying to get back together with my ex-wife,’ I hastened to add, for some reason. (God knows whether that was still so!)
‘Glad to hear it,’ Dina commented ironically. ‘A very interesting occupation, absorbing . . . and, above all, promising!’
She promised to come to the assembly (evidently to the Monday one, since two people had already spoken in favour of Monday)—on the condition that she would not have to sign anything. She didn’t give any details about herself for filling in the form to be sent to the Ministry of Justice either. I did not insist: the law does not set a minimum number for a religious group, and three people would probably be enough.

I could not get through to Yulia Utochkina, of whom I had, and still have, only her first name, surname, and phone number: she simply did not pick up. True, late in the evening, when I had agreed the date and time with Darya Arkadyevna—midday on Monday—and afterwards sent out the information to the disciples, a laconic message arrived from her: ‘I will come.’
Besides that, I managed to take the following steps:
— I filled in the form and prepared it for postal dispatch to the department of the Ministry of Justice by registered letter (in order to submit the form in person, I would, by the logic of standard legal procedure, have needed a power of attorney from the group—but the group did not yet legally exist!);
— I created pages for the religious community on two popular social media;
— I arranged the urgent publication of an announcement of the founding meeting in one of the city newspapers.
Nobody reads newspapers nowadays, but that was not the point at all: a fresh issue of the paper would turn out to be a documentary, one might say historical, witness to the appearance of the new community!
The last two steps, from the point of view of sufficiency, were superfluous—the law does not require the founders of a new religious group to perform them—but I am accustomed to do everything I do conscientiously, with a margin of strength. The fact that in this case I was performing my work gratis could in no way lower its quality.
My journal had by now tired even me; these dry records, devoid of liveliness and imagination, of my Friday’s work must surely have tired the reader as well. I would have gladly dropped them, if they were not important for the subsequent narrative.

Here is the last thing I managed on Friday evening: I processed the photographs of the manuscript of the Gospel in a text-recognition programme, saved the resulting material, and sent it to the editor-in-chief of Cyril and Methodius with a request to state his opinion on what exactly the book was.
I had received permission to do this the previous late evening (or already night?), when I was driving Darya Arkadyevna home for the second time.
‘You do not need my permission: I am not the author!’ she said to me then. And she added, ‘I do not expect anything very bad from your undertaking. I do not expect anything good either.’
‘Should one not know who is a friend and who is an enemy?’ I objected.
‘It is not interesting to me to know that, and I do not want to create enemies,’ I was told. ‘Though perhaps there is no escaping it! After all, the Prince was accused of precisely the thing he fought against.’
‘If you have a bad premonition, then I will give up the idea of asking Mefodyev’s opinion,’ the author of these notes suggested. 'I have not grown attached to it.’
‘No, no, let it be, let us give him a chance. And it is necessary, for your . . . for our group too, to understand what they think we are. Send it, find out. The responsibility for this . . . absurdity I take upon myself. You are my—’ she laughed shortly, ‘—you are my tame fox now! If someone tames a fox, and the fox bites someone, it’s the owner who is to be blamed.’
‘I will try not to bite anyone—and I solemnly place the leash in your hands.’
‘And I unclip that leash and let you go free,’ Darya answered. ‘What sort of fox is on a leash? Only dogs are walked on a leash. Are you a dog? Well, there you are . . .’

3

On the Saturday morning Karolina rang me and asked to meet—without putting it off, if possible!
I agreed—and an hour later was waiting for her by the same monument by which I had first met the ‘lad’. This time, the ‘lad’ appeared in a knee-length black skirt, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket.
‘You look excellent,’ I approved her ‘outfit’ (now, I think, that is called a look—though perhaps even that has gone out of date). ‘All you are missing is bright-red lipstick and a little coffin-shaped rucksack on your back.’
‘I did not understand about the little coffin?’
‘Well, that is how Zhanna Friske looked when she played the little witch in Day Watch,’ I had to explain.
‘I have heard of that film, but I have not seen it. It is some sort of terrible antiquity, I think?’
‘No, no, why an antiquity?’ I was surprised. ‘It came out in 2006.’
‘In 2006!’ Carey exclaimed with temperament. ‘A year before I was born! I said it was hoary antiquity: you might as well have mentioned The Pokrovsky Gate, or those ones, what are they called, The Cossacks of the Kuban . . . So you categorically dislike how I look?’
‘I like it very much!’ I answered almost sincerely. ‘And you did not call me here to discuss your appearance, did you, Carey? By the way, does that name raise any objections?’
‘None; of course, that is not what I called you for! Excuse me, I am nervous and talking nonsense. Your holiday lasts until the beginning of July, right? Ah, what a pity! Tell me, Uncle Oleg: is there no chance of taking me on for work experience in July, but writing in the papers that I supposedly did it from the end of June, from the twenty-sixth? And even better, from next Monday—’
‘—which will be a day off anyway, so from Tuesday,’ I corrected her. ‘It is possible, but why?’
‘Can it really be possible?’ she lit up. ‘My parents are flying to Turkey and intend to take me with them, I couldn't give a toss about that trip.’
‘Congratulations,’ I approved with restraint. ‘And why, forgive the slang, couldn’t you give a toss?’
‘Slang, is it? Correct me, please, or who else is going to cultivate me . . . Do you think it will be historical Turkey—Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Galata Tower, all that? Yeah, right! The most thoroughly vulgar and touristic version! I want, in my last school summer, to wake early in the morning, wander unfamiliar streets, get on unknown routes, take a bicycle and ride out of town until my heart pounds with exhaustion—and not to lie like a brainless carcass in a deckchair, covered in a horrid pink tan, stuffing myself with ice cream, and fighting off the advances of ageing gigolos!’
‘At sixteen I would probably have decided otherwise—but you are possibly right, and in the way you have described it, almost certainly right,’ I had to agree. ‘Indeed, who does not want to escape from under the parental wing for at least a week . . . And the work experience, then, will help you in that?’
‘Of course! Father himself is not exactly keen to drag his teenage daughter about everywhere on holiday; we are both looking for decent pretexts to relieve him of that duty, and neither of us has thought of one yet. Could you . . . talk to him? Mikhail Sergeyevich is his name; I warned him that you would ring. I am asking a great deal, am I not? Forgive me. I will understand if you refuse: I will go to the hated Turkey . . .’ she sighed.
Before ringing Mikhail Sergeyevich Ustinov, I dialled the personal number of my superior and, having learned the latest news, retold the situation to him with little laughs and jokes. Dmitry Vyacheslavovich assured me that I would write the reference for the trainee myself and put the dates in it myself. If those dates did not coincide with the real ones, he would, so be it, close his eyes to it.

Karolina’s father, Mikhail Sergeyevich, turned out to be a polite, well-wishing, and very painstaking man. He was interested, in particular, in what exactly his daughter’s duties at Voskhod would consist of. I explained that we hardly expected much help from a schoolgirl who had just finished her tenth year. Karolina’s chief duty would be to watch, listen, and learn. Towards the end of the work experience we might begin to give her simple tasks: make a call, write a simple letter, prepare a reference note, find a court decision in an online archive, work through it, highlighting the most important information with a marker, and so on. In any case, one should not hurry with that, and besides, career-guidance work experience is needed as much for the few who will afterwards connect their lives with the profession, as for those who want to make sure that some occupation is definitely not for them. Let Mikhail Sergeyevich not worry: she was not our first trainee, and most likely not our last. True, we usually work with students, and at sixteen it is still a bit early to be thinking about a career; on the other hand, it is also wonderful that Karolina—er—Mikhailovna takes her future life choices so responsibly. Best of all would be for Karolina to come for work experience three hours a day; it would take about two weeks, from the end of June—from the twenty-sixth, say, I declared nonchalantly (at the other end of the line someone sighed—or exhaled with relief: a companion’s feelings are not clear when you cannot see their face). Nevertheless, Karolina’s papa did not let me go until he had extracted every detail about me, including almost the year I had graduated and the topic of my dissertation. A natural anxiety; in his place I would have done the same, had Mira gone to work experience even at a flower shop. Where is Mira now, in what regions of space?
Pressing the end-call button, I turned to the beaming Karolina and announced:
‘Done! I have freed you from the “hated Turkey”! Now do as you like: ride your bicycle, visit exhibitions, go to concerts, meet boys! Afterwards, who knows, you may remember me with a kind word.’
Her face fell:
‘Are you driving me away?’
‘No . . .’ I was taken aback, unable to hold back the thought: ‘How am I to entertain you now?’
‘Uncle Oleg, can it really be that even on holiday you are not busy with anything, not working, not remembering some case?’
‘As it happens, right now, even on holiday, I really am “working” on a small “case”, and for no payment at that,’ I admitted. ‘It is hardly likely to interest you . . .’
‘How badly you think of me and how you underestimate me! You think that as soon as I have got rid of Turkey I will go straight off to walk with boys? I have told you already how I see modern boys—well, perhaps I simply have been unlucky with boys . . . Even if your “case” is about how some John Jackson and some Jack Johnson cannot divide a shed between them, I am terribly interested! Do you know what? Let us sit in a caf; at an outside table, you will buy me an ice cream, and yourself a beer on the occasion of your holiday—and you will slowly tell me about your “unpaid case”,’ she decreed. ‘Or no, why should I have ice cream: am I a child? Buy me a coffee instead, an americano. No, a latte. No, americano after all . . .’

4

So that is what we did, and I bought the girl both coffee and ice cream: let her decide for herself, and let her take pleasure in a childhood that was about to end . . .
I began to tell her about ‘The Oasis’, pressing, of course, on the purely legal side of the story, and not at all on the doctrinal one. I dwelt in particular detail on the reasons why the decision to create the group had ripened and, perhaps, over-ripened: indirect accusations of cultist activity; the spreading of gossip which, had Darya not herself invented the legend of the young seminarian and let it out into the world, would have had to be qualified as slander; the wish of the editor-in-chief of the Orthodox publishing house ‘to take measures’—in which one could perhaps hear a hidden threat as well . . . Carey grasped the whole essence of the legal mechanics of creating a religious group straight away, but what interested her even more than the mechanics themselves was my conversation with Savely Ivanovich and Kristina’s evening arrival at my flat (this part of the story I could not leave out). The girl listened to me as if spellbound, almost reading the thought before I had time to utter it.
‘I dislike your Mefodyev already, though I have not seen him once!’ she admitted.
‘Why so?’ I smiled. ‘I, incidentally, do not dislike him.’
‘But admit it already, admit that you dislike him, be honest with yourself!’
‘A lawyer, Carey, must not be guided by feelings, especially petty ones,’ I pronounced edifyingly. ‘His chief motive, his ideally only motive, is the benefit of his client, who often does not even know that the law grants him this or that right—as, for example, Dorothea Arkadyevna does not know that she has the full right to conduct any religious activity, including public activity, without any approval from the diocesan council.’
‘Yes, that is important, and there is something worthwhile in it!’ my young ‘disciple’ admitted. ‘That is not work in a sex shop; one need not be ashamed to do this; one could even devote one’s life to it... Did I tell you, Uncle Oleg, that I have watched a heap of films about lawyers—My Sister’s Keeper, and Michael Clayton, and Official Secrets with Keira Knightley? A heap, I say! Tell me, why has no ideal of the lawyer as defender of the unfortunate, as knight of legality, appeared in Russia? Are we an inferior country?’
‘No, we simply have a different national mentality. With us, “a mouthpiece is a hired conscience”,’ I smirked.
‘How is is, a “hired conscience”?! Where is that from?’
‘From the Karamazovs, I think. And there was something about knighthood in the Gospel . . .’
Barely had I said it I had to regret it: Karolina, who already knew about the Gospel—I had had to tell her, otherwise the essence of the question of the group’s religious affiliation would not have been clear—demanded that I read her the relevant chapter at once, at once!
‘I hope you understand, Carey, what an awkward position you are putting me in with your request,’ I admitted. ‘You are a minor, and you are asking me to read you a fragment of a text entitled “Gospel”, which, with a stretch, could be qualified as religious activity, for which activity I do not have the consent of your parents, and I am very unsure that—’
‘Uncle Oleg,’ she interrupted me, ‘do I remember correctly that in Russia the age of consent is sixteen?’
‘Precisely so,’ I was taken aback. ‘What are you driving at?’
‘So, pardon my French, one may sleep with me, but one may not read me the Gospel?!’ she flared. ‘Do you not see yourself what savage nonsense this is?! What rubbish are you grinding out?! Forgive me, of course . . . What religious activity?! You are sharing with me the details of your work within the framework of my career-guidance work experience. Read it already!’
‘Very well!’ I gave in. ‘As you yourself said, “within the framework of career-guidance work experience”. . .’

5

The Chapter on Battles

1. The Prince is not a flower. Even the Little Prince is a warrior. Not for nothing does the Author of the Tale depict him with a sword.
2. With whom does the Prince do battle? With the vulgarity of his own mind. Every morning, every evening, he conscientiously weeds out the seeds of bad thoughts, so that they do not grow into a whole baobab.
3. The battle with the vulgarity of the mind is not the only battle. There are harsher ones.
4. There is no rest, no happiness of contemplating the sunset. Every day, every life sends one into a new battle.
5. One should not set off into battle without having attained the knighthood of the heart. It is also called the armour of the heart.
6. There is no single recipe for how to forge this armour. But let the one who forges it remember two things: the High and the Great.
7. Let him, in every undertaking of life, every voice he hears, every spring from which he drinks, seek first of all height and greatness.
8. Let him not fear the storms of life, and not be afraid to stand up in defence of the unfortunate!
9. Let him not avoid his own sufferings for the sake of another’s good, knowing that every blow of fate forges the armour of his heart!
10. Armed with the knighthood of the heart, the Prince is capable of going out to battle with the Jabberwock himself.
11.  The teaching about the Jabberwock was handed down by the Author of another Tale, and his friend depicted the Beamish Boy, who manfully raised his sword against the monster. The Prince is the foretold Beamish Boy.
12. The Jabberwock is the cumulative evil of the world. The world is the cemetery of truth, and there is nothing to be surprised at if a cemetery sometimes gives birth to cemetery ghouls.
13. Was it not with the Jabberwock that the King of Kings spoke in the desert? Let the wise debate this at their leisure.
14. The Jabberwock has different forms, comes in different guises. His spirit is cunning and clever, old and mighty.
15. The Jabberwock would like to subjugate all the people on earth and make them obedient Jabber-sheep.
16. A pitiful life is lived by the Jabber-sheep already subjugated by him, and afterwards they descend into the still more pitiful Sheepfold.
17. Do not be a sheep! Take the sword, go out against the Jabberwock, and let the weapon not sleep in your hand!
18. You will hardly strike the Jabberwock dead, hardly cut off even one of his serpentine heads.
19. But go forward, and deal the Lord of Vulgarity even the smallest wound.
20. You will not be ashamed of this when your turn comes to return to your own planet.

6

The ‘Chapter on Battles’ made a far stronger impression on Karolina than on me, though outwardly it was not easy to tell: when I finished reading, she was simply silent for a while, faintly drumming her fingers on the table, looking at one point. At last she spoke:
‘This book is about the most important thing. Without prefaces, without nonsense, it focuses straight away on the main thing.’
‘There is much in it that is unclear!’ I complained. ‘Even that unfortunate Jabberwock . . .’
‘The Jabberwock is precisely what is clear!’ the girl objected. ‘It is from Alice Through the Looking-Glass.’
‘Sorry?’
‘A monster from a mirror-book; in Russian it is usually translated by the word Barmaglot, “The Mutterswall”,’ she explained. ‘The Jabberwock is cooler than the Mutterswall, of course! The Mutterswall, judging by his name, merely mutters and swallows, whereas in the Jabberwock there is both wolf, and werewolf, and someone who wants to give a deadly jab . . .’
‘One gets the impression that the author of the Gospel reads more out of children’s fairy tales than is in them,’ I voiced my thought aloud.
‘One gets the impression that you adults read less out of fairy tales than is in them!’ Carey parried. ‘Though what am I saying: “you adults . . .” I no longer have the right to talk like that; right now I am exchanging the down of a chick for permanent feathers. I probably look very funny . . . Do you know what the special feature of this Gospel is? The author is not ashamed of being ridiculous! After all, “Jabber-sheep” is amusing!’ she smiled. ‘And yet, it is all the same to him what we will say. What a . . . royal pride there is in this! Or not pride: I do not know whether the word fits . . . Adults are usually afraid of being absurd. I have been afraid more and more often lately, which means it is all over, I am irrevocably growing my feathers . . . Either he was not an adult, or he really was the one he wrote about.’
‘That is, the Little Prince?’ I clarified.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It is hardly likely that this text was created by a very young person,’ I remarked, as if by the way. ‘More likely someone of my age, or even older.’ (‘And really, how old was he?’ came into my head. ‘I never found out, as it happens . . .’)
‘Do you really say so?’ Carey responded, but without much surprise: some work of thought was going on in her, and she was answering me at half strength. ‘Anyway, it does not matter. I need to think about all this, thoroughly. Alone. And right now. I do not need anyone for that, not even you. So . . . I will go, all right?’ She rose from the little table. ‘Forgive me, please: does it look very rude? Well, put it down to my idiotic age, I keep telling you. In general, get yourself a special little notebook and write down all my sins in it, and in two years present it to me, all right? No, you are really not offended?’
‘God be with you, Carey!’ I laughed. ‘You are a free person.’
‘Well, that is wonderful then . . . I will ring! Or ring first yourself . . . Send me that chapter by email! That is it, I am off! Cheers!’
‘She never touched the ice cream,’ flashed through my mind. ‘The fledgling is fledging . . .’
‘Perhaps philosophical books are best read precisely in youth,’ another thought caught up with the first. ‘And perhaps the Gospel was written precisely for youth.’

7

I got home and had just managed to have lunch when my phone announced the arrival of a letter. The letter was from Mefodyev.

Dear Oleg Valeryevich!
Without any pleasure, but only out of a sense of duty, I send you the promised review of the ‘little tale’.
To the question you posed, as to what is before us, it is difficult for me to give you a final answer. One thing I can tell you: it is not an Orthodox text. It would even be correct to write the particle ‘not’ together with the adjective, with a hyphen, and more correct still to replace it with the particle ‘anti’. In what precisely its anti-Orthodoxy consists, it is difficult for me to determine—I am not, after all, an outstanding theologian, but merely a priest at rest, who continues, to the measure of his modest powers, to labour in moral mentorship. But expressions that wound the soul of an Orthodox person are here in excessive quantity.
Here are some:
— ‘Christ is space’ (1:17; what sort of marriage is this between Christology and astrophysics?);
— ‘Those who imitate them are ordinary swindlers’ (2:16; surely not a stone at Christian monasticism?);
— ‘The King of Kings got it from the Jewish Rams’ (3:7; perhaps it is even true—but what a formulation!);
— ‘How many Foxes were there in the earthly retinue of the King of Kings?’ (3:15; here one reads a certain insult directed at the apostles of Christ);
— ‘They say that the Serpent was conquered by the King of Kings’ (4:5; what does ‘they say’ mean?! ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’  (1 Corinthians 15:54)—is that, for the author, no more than a rumour, a piece of gossip?!);
— ‘Others, like hyenas, drag away the corpses of the Big Beasts’ (6:10; probably I am excessively suspicious, but it is difficult to shake off the feeling that this is said of all honest Christians);
— ‘Drink instead the tested drinks’ (8:9; you will probably smile, but it seems that the irony at the ‘vendors of drinks’ is an insinuation against any publisher of Orthodox literature).
The text also contains
— non-canonical prayers (see, for example, 3:17; why not go the whole way, then: ‘Azazello, have mercy on me’, or even ‘Woland, by thy mercy and thy bounty’?!—forgive such a bold example, and God forbid, God forbid!);
— the author’s own, and evidently non-Christian, mythology (the author calls Satan the Jabberwock—and who will vouch that it is precisely Satan he calls so?!);
— curious moral emphases (the author considers the world a ‘cemetery of life’, whereas for Orthodox people the world is a field of joyful labour, and not at all a cemetery).
In general, to prove that what is before us is a non-Orthodox, possibly even non-Christian text, is to break down an open door.
Equally, what is before us is, of course, not a children’s fairy tale: for children such—Lord forgive me—‘little tales’ would be boring, incomprehensible, and even scary, and children must be kept as far as possible from such ‘little tales’. If you ever thought that the text you sent me might be published by Cyril and Methodius, then I am forced to disappoint you: literature of this sort would hardly be of interest to our readers, whose good name we value too highly to permit ourselves such dubious experiments.
Of all the variants of answer you designated, since you force me to choose one of them (I understand—jurisprudence demands precision!), I incline most of all to the third. What is before us is, by all appearances, a text having no relation to Christianity, of which your humble servant has already spoken above. And again I repeat: the prefix ‘not’ represents a pure logical zero, and this text is not merely a zero, but a negative quantity. What is impossible in mathematics is very much possible in theology! In the philosophical respect the text is worthless, and in the moral respect it is, presumably, dangerous.
I have taken the liberty of sending the text (together with certain thoughts of my own) to
your former spouse,
Olga Nikolaevna Smirnova, the cousin of ‘Mother Dorothea’,
Alexei Ilyich Berdichev, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, head of the department of philosophy at the state university.
It is precisely Alexei Ilyich who can give a more qualified conclusion on the ‘philosophical content’, if, of course, it is present here at all.
Now, Oleg Valeryevich, when it has become clear to you what exactly you are dealing with, I want to ask you: what do you intend to undertake? We expect from you not words, but deeds, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’ (Matthew 7:16). And if you have not even thought of undertaking anything, if the doctrinal text of this modern cult is interesting to you only speculatively and academically, then I insistently ask your advice as to what measures we, unworthy ones, ought to take, so as in future to shield the honest parishioners of the Orthodox Church from the influence of ‘Mother Dorothea’!
I await your answer!

Respectful yours,

S. I. Mefodyev

‘Come on, admit it already, admit that you dislike him, be honest with yourself!’ Karoline’s ringing little voice surfaced in my memory.

8

A thought began to take shape: ‘We will not show this to Darya Arkadyevna. Just the thing for Karolina, though . . .’
‘Forgive me for distracting you from your thoughts,’ I apologised, half in jest and half seriously, when the girl answered my call. ‘Do you not have a wish to carry out a small errand as part of your career-guidance work experience?’
‘Depends what the errand is?’ This manner of pronouncing ordinary suggestions with a questioning intonation was evidently either a generational peculiarity or even a purely personal trait of hers: I have not noticed it in others.
‘Mefodyev has sent a letter,’ I explained at once. ‘I will forward it to you as soon as I put down the receiver. Could you have a look at it and compose a reply? Any reply that comes into your head. As to content—let’s be mocking, sarcastic, and even, let us say, a little boorish. But in content only! In form it must be impeccably polite. And, if possible, in my style, without Anglicisms and so on.’
‘Understood!’ Karolina exclaimed merrily. ‘I think I can manage . . .’
About five minutes later—evidently having had time to read the letter of the editor-in-chief of Cyril and Methodius—she rang me back herself.
‘Uncle Oleg,’ she began straight off, ‘have you never had the wish to chop someone’s head off?’
‘Never once: I am not the Queen of Hearts, after all, and Savely Ivanovich is not the Cheshire Cat either . . . Have you had it?’ I guessed.
‘Uh-huh! Swearing, you say, is not allowed?’
‘Refined politeness must be demonstrated, Carey,’ I confirmed. ‘In fact, showing it precisely when one wants to swear is a significant part of our work.’
‘It seems not only of work, but of the whole of adult life too,’ she sighed. ‘Very well, I will try . . . I will try very hard!’
And she did, contrary to her young age, try excellently, for an ‘A plus’. Half an hour later—in the meantime Olga had had time to ring me—a draft of the letter landed in by inbox.

Dear Savely Ivanovich! I sincerely thank you for your detailed reply. Your theological experience, lying at the foundation of your expert assessment, is beyond price.
You ask me to give you advice of a legal character. Having reflected, I can offer you two important pieces of advice.
1. I would advise you to reconcile yourself to the fact that other people hold religious views different from ours. Moreover, the state even permits them—as long as they observe the corresponding norms and laws, uniform for all—to preach these views and to acquire new followers. However terrible this may be, we can do nothing about it. You reconcile yourself, after all, to the existence of Muslims, Buddhists, Orthodox Jews, Lutherans, and Catholics within the bounds of your diocese! You will now have to reconcile yourself to the ‘followers of the Little Prince’ as well. For you, who have experience of mentorship, it will be especially easy and joyful to exercise yourself in humility, if we recall that this quality is a genuinely Christian virtue, of which the ‘followers of the Little Prince’, as non-Christians, are evidently deprived—and let their own depravity serve as their own punishment.
2. Besides humility, I would also advise you to exercise caution. Savely Ivanovich, my dear, you are so zealous for the common good that you turn out to be careless! In the penultimate sentence of your letter one can, with a strong wish, see your readiness to act outside the legal field. What if someone among these unpleasant cultists should suffer in the near future, and what if you should be suspected of having indirectly ‘contributed’ to it? One cannot be so careless . . . I am worried about you!

Sincerely,

O. V. Pozdeyev

Following the draft, again by email, a boastful note from Carey came in.

Updated my thesaurus which now includes ‘zealous’!

Yes, the way she had done it, I would not have composed it myself—or rather, the style was, perhaps, mine, but I would never have begun by writing something like that to an adult, respected, and already elderly man. Too bold. On the other hand, where was she wrong? No, this generation will still give us a head start . . . Though what do I know about that generation? I know only Carey—and she is possibly a diamond against the general background.
To the note about the thesaurus I replied:

Just the thing! You may send it.

All done!

she reported to me a few minutes later. I rang her back at once.
‘How do you mean, “All done!”? Did you send it to him from your own email?” In my agitation I even switched to ty, the familiar ‘you’.
‘From my own . . . Was I not supposed to? Uncle Oleg, forgive me, please . . .’
‘No, no, it is my fault: one must formulate tasks more precisely . . .’ I laughed and explained my laughter: “Everything for the best, Carey! Everything for the best . . .’
And indeed: if Mister Editor-in-Chief considered it normal to forward my letter to people who were strangers to me, then why could I not answer him from the email of my temporary assistant, even by her own hands? Tact between people is good when both sides observe it, and at the game of ‘Let us be polite but brazen,’ two can play. After such a letter, sent, to make things worse, from someone else’s address, there was evidently no hoping for keeping on good terms with Mefodyev. And God be with him, however: I am not going to have him as a godparent to my children.
‘Ring me at any reasonable time, Uncle Oleg!’ Karolina responded on the phone. ‘Give me new errands! I liked this one . . . And I also wanted to suggest: use ty with me already, please.’
‘I slipped into it just now, by accident . . . Is that probably rude?’ I worried.
‘No! It is . . . normal. If I were your niece, you would use ty with me too.’
We parted warmly.

9

Mefodyev and I had evidently quarrelled, but the machine he had set in motion was still turning: his emissaries continued to come to me and to write me letters. The first was Olga, who announced herself even before Carey had had time to finish her errand.
Olga Nikolaevna Smirnova, the cousin of Darya Arkadyevna, rang me and asked me to meet. I suggested a caf; as the place.
‘I am too old for caf;s!’ Olga Nikolaevna cut me off with displeasure. ‘I would come to your work if you have an office of your own. What, you are on holiday? Then at home.’
The thought that it is somewhat improper for an Orthodox matushka to invite herself to the home of a single man apparently did not trouble her in the slightest. Sighing, I dictated my address to her.
At about four the bell rang. I opened the door to my guest and invited her to come through to the kitchen, where I offered her tea. She agreed, even thanked me, but so distractedly, indifferently, on autopilot, that it was clear she had not come to me for the tea at all.
We sat, examining each other—she me, and I her. A wide black skirt to the floor, a grey blouse, entirely closed, with long sleeves, a little yellow belt (why yellow, of all things, and not white? what would Chekhov have said about that—the man who could not forgive Natasha her green belt with the pink dress?) A finift brooch at the neck, with the image of one of the old Russian churches. Her hair gathered into a knot at the back of her head and decorated with a narrow bone comb, which she took out, the moment she sat down, and laid on the table. What did that mean: purity of intentions? A thrown gauntlet? Or was it an everyday, domestic gesture in which I was pointlessly looking for symbolic meaning? Her lips pressed into a thread. Except for those thin lips and somewhat greater distinctness, even elegance, in the features of her face, the resemblance between the cousins turned out to be astonishing: one might have taken them for full sisters, and not cousins.
‘What do I owe the pleasure?’ I blurted out some absurd pre-revolutionary phrase.
‘I wanted to look at you, Oleg Valeryevich. To find out what the—’ she smirked, ‘—founder of a new faith looks like!’
‘You have probably confused me with someone: I have not founded any new religions!’
‘If you are not founding, then you are helping to found,’ she parried. ‘You serve as the village midwife of sectarianism . . . I hear a new house of prayer is to be founded tomorrow?’
‘How, incidentally, do you know about it?’ I answered a question with a question, in the Jewish manner.
‘Why, I read it in the newspaper! Some kind people drew my attention to it . . . So Dashenka is to be appointed priestess?’
‘With us she is usually called Darya Arkadyevna,’ I responded, ironically singling out ‘with us’ with my voice.
‘Well, yes, we know, and also “Mother Dorothea” . . . One thing I cannot understand: what is your personal profit in all this?’
‘Not all things are done for profit, Olga Nikolaevna,’ I objected edifyingly.
‘I understand! Some are done for amusement.’
‘You are free to see it this way,’ I agreed easily. ‘I will not argue with you.’
‘What has come over you, who has . . . I cannot fathom how she managed to cloud your eyes, you being a clever, grown-up man?’
‘We seem to live in different worlds,' I said, restraining my irritation. ‘Probably in your world it is customary to “cloud eyes”, “befuddle”, “hoodwink”, and whatever else. But there is another world, where people voluntarily agree to trust one another.’
‘Allow me to clarify: is the idea about different worlds also part of the “new faith”?’ Olga interrupted, forgetting even to take offence at the unflattering description of ‘her’ world. ‘Where did you get it from, at any rate: from Buddhism, is it? Jokes aside, but do you understand what serious harm this idea is capable of doing? Right now we are at war with the Ukraine,’ she clearly pronounced ‘the’. ‘Why are we at war? Why, thanks to the defenders of faith in a multitude of subjective worlds that we are at war! In the Ukrainian world it is precisely we who are the fierce enemies and bloodsuckers. And you and people like you stand above the fray and conduct benevolent reasonings about a multitude of worlds, about how everyone, so to speak, has his own truth!’
‘There is some truth in what you say,’ I had to admit. ‘She is clever!’ I thought, silently. ‘But look, please, also at the danger of the opposite idea, the idea that “the truth is always one”! On the same example, if you like. Since “the truth is always one”, and our opponents will not abandon the idea that it is precisely they who are right, they will fight until they have laid in the ground ten or twenty million of their own citizens.’
My companion nodded.
‘That’s probably how it will happen,’ she confirmed. ‘It is an essential, civilisational dispute.’
‘But is the dispute between different faiths in Russia essential and civilisational?’ I objected. ‘Do you really want to exterminate all the Muslims, the Buddhists, and so on down the list, establishing a monopoly of Orthodoxy?’
‘Life will show . . .’ Olga responded. ‘What astonishes me most of all is that such a . . . such a misunderstanding as my Dashenka will soon become a whole . . . head priestess of a pagan temple. She was always, all her life, helpless! She would fold her little paws and mew like a kitten, waiting for someone taking pity on her, to grab her by the scruff and carry her to the right place. How did all of you suddenly make out a sorceress and a prophetess in her? What have you seen in her? There it is, truly, whom God wishes to punish . .’
‘A prophet is without honour in his own country,’ I objected with another proverb. ‘In general, it seems to me that it doesn’t become you to envy your sister: your life, judging by appearances, from a purely external point of view, has turned out far more successfully.’
‘But how much I have laboured for what fell to her for nothing, straight into her lap!’ the woman sitting opposite me responded at once and with feeling.
‘The eternal quarrel between Mozart and Salieri,’ the thought came to me. ‘How strange that in religion too there are its Mozarts . . . and its Salieris!’
‘Dashenka, imagine, will soon be invested with the stole . . . How can one invest a woman with a stole?!’ Olga went on wondering aloud.
‘Who told you that in this “new faith”, as you call it, stoles and the rest of the Orthodox liturgical vestments will be used at all?’ I objected, trying to sound gentle. ‘Here, by the look of things, everything will turn out more modest.’
‘The yellow scarf, then . . .’
‘What yellow scarf?' I did not get it, thinking with slight bewilderment that my companion was rambling.
‘An attribute of the teacher’s calling!’ Olga explained. ‘In May 2009 I found out by hook or by crook where my prodigal little sister was living. I came to visit her and saw a yellow scarf she had prepared for her . . . guru.’ She pronounced the word even physically shuddering from the wave of hostility that passed through her. ‘I evidently said something disrespectful about that scarf, or about him—and she drove me out, put me out of the door! I was so taken aback that I allowed . . . Why are all cultists so preoccupied with their ridiculous childish symbols? Why do they treat them with animal seriousness? Can you answer me that?’
‘A counter-question, Olga Nikolaevna,’ I parried. ‘Imagine that Dorothea Arkadyevna had laughed at a priest’s stole. What would you have done in that case?’
‘Well, I would probably not have driven her out of the house . . . How did it come into your head to compare these things?!’ My guest was indignant.
‘I compare them, and I will go on comparing them. How you “churched Orthodox” love to play your Orthodox “Monopoly”!’ I exclaimed with vexation. ‘And for God’s sake, for all I care, play it inside your parishes as much as you like! Only be so good as to remember that before the law, at least purely nominally, all faiths in Russia are equal.’
‘Of course!’ my companion responded sarcastically. ‘All are equal, “there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female”, and let us have sodomite marriages, amen! I recognise the teaching of Azurov! For which, thank God, he was expelled from the gymnasium, with my help.’
‘Who is Azurov?’ I did not understand that.
‘You did not know the surname?’ Olga was surprised. ‘Why, her “spiritual mentor”, pardon me! An ordinary loser, a kitchen philosopher, of whom there are thousands in Russia, a crank with wild fantasies. I remember, at the end of December, in our eleventh year, classes were cancelled because of the frost, but he came anyway. The result was a “free lesson”, without an entry in the register—and in that free lesson he suddenly began telling us that Barmaglot, it turns out, is badly translated into Russian, that in reality that piece of nonsense is a heroic ballad, which ought to be rendered in translation as prose, and best of all in the language of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Can you imagine the degree of detachment from the real world and from native culture of a teacher who proclaims such . . . balderdash?’
‘How different you and Darya Arkadyevna are, all the same,’ escaped me involuntarily. ‘Well, at least he was a talented teacher, if even two girls in your class listened to him attentively. Or even three: look here, you still remember that lesson!’ I remarked jokingly.
‘It does not take much talent to put a seventeen-year-old fool into bed!’ my new acquaintance suddenly came out with, as though she had been holding that card in readiness and meant to throw it down at the first convenient moment.
‘And who, forgive me, told you about the bed?’ I inquired politely, thinking to myself that the lady was, it seemed, abusing my hospitality.
‘It does not take a genius to put two and two together . . . Do you even know that before his departure my sister lived with her “guru” as man and wife? Sorry, I have used an imprecise word: served him as a free concubine?’
‘Permit me not to believe you.’
‘As you wish!’ my guest chuckled. ‘That is your business.’
‘Olga Nikolaevna, even if Dorothea Arkadyevna in her young years had lived “as man and wife” with a whole platoon of soldiers, that would scarcely matter to me,’ I remarked, remembering Dina’s little phrase. ‘And I also do not see, at point-blank range, what business it can possibly be of yours.’
‘Why does she get forgiven for everything?!’ Olga exclaimed, taking up her bone comb and striking the table hard with it. ‘You are ready to forgive her a whole platoon of soldiers—a Mary of Egypt indeed, we have found one!—but no one will forgive me the smallest sin! Is it not so?’
‘Can’t say, Your Worship,’ I evaded an answer. ‘I would not wish to fantasise about a platoon of soldiers in either your case or hers . . . Let us speak plainly, if we may. Why have you come?’
Olga Nikolaevna sat for perhaps half a minute in silence, her lips pressed together, before she said:
‘I consider that I ought to be something like the church warden or the secretary of the parish council in the new community. I would like to know how I am to become one.’
‘What for?!’ I was sincerely astonished, at the same time marvelling at her unceremoniousness, or rather, her naivety.
‘What do you mean, “what for”?! Because I am her cousin!’
‘No, you did not understand, I am not asking you: “Why?” I am asking: “What for?” ’
‘Because then my authority as a matushka and as the director of the Sunday school at the Church of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called will allow the bishop and the diocesan council to look at the new community more tolerantly, not as at a cult of the first water, but rather as at a preparatory group, as a step towards the true faith, as a “Christianity for spiritual children”!’ Olga explained. ‘If you are to be considered cultists, then at least not dangerous ones. And I will see to it that the “spiritual children” with my little sister at their head do not commit any irreparable stupidities. We spoke with Savely Ivanovich and agreed that such an outcome might suit everyone . . . Is it not clear?’
So that was how it was . . . Well, from her point of view the plan probably had some sense. The idea had only one defect: its authors were deadly certain that ‘The Oasis’ would not survive without the tolerant attitude of the church authorities towards it.
‘With all respect to the persons named, it is all the same to us how affectionately or unaffectionately the diocesan council, and even the ruling metropolitan, looks at the new community,’ I objected, trying to sound calm. ‘Forgive me. If you consider us an anti-Christian sect, as I was given to understand today, then we do not need your “supervision.” ’ Funny, this ‘we’ came out of me for the first time, until then I had considered myself nothing more than a consulting lawyer. ‘And if you nevertheless wish to “supervise” us, then be so good as to recognise Dorothea Arkadyevna, with all her peculiarities and “strangenesses”, as the leader of a full-fledged Orthodox community! Which you will almost certainly not do . . .’
My companion rose, taking her bone comb with her.
‘It is not for you to dictate conditions . . . Have I understood correctly that you are now definitively renouncing the Orthodox faith?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I answered, forcing myself to speak as quietly and slowly as possible. ‘I simply do not put an equals sign between Orthodoxy in toto and the diocesan council—though I do not doubt that it is composed of quite worthy people. But even worthy people may be mistaken. What of it—even saints are sometimes mistaken!’ The influx of my unexpected eloquence seemed astonishing even to me. ‘Our last Russian tsar made a great many political, even legal, mistakes, and yet he is glorified in the rank of passion-bearer. And the diocesan council of our eparchy, after all, is not composed of passion-bearers alone, is it?’
Pressing her lips together and spending no more words on me, Olga Nikolaevna went out into the hall, where we said goodbye to one another.

10

Late in the evening of Saturday, when I had already begun to consider the day’s misadventures over, a copy of a letter from Berdichev dropped into my mailbox.

Dear Savely Ivanovich, dear Oleg Valeryevich!
I am sending to both of you my review of the ‘sacred text’ of one of the newest sects, sent to me by Savely Ivanovich. This review is not an attempt at a religious-studies expert assessment; consider it simply my idle reflections.
Let me begin, perhaps, with the fact that the so-called ‘Gospel of the Little Prince’ does reveal its author’s acquaintance with world philosophy. In particular, in the reading of ‘Christ as space’ one can see traces of Hegel’s teaching about space and time; such an understanding of God is also not far from Spinoza’s theological conception. In the proposition ‘not to fear the storms of life’ one discerns Schopenhauer’s aesthetics. ‘And let the sword not sleep in thy hand’ is an almost verbatim quotation from Jerusalem by the English visionary poet William Blake. The polemic with the idea of the Overman obviously refers to Nietzsche, to whom there are other, implicit references as well. The ‘Chapter on the Journey to Other Planets’ echoes, at the level of its themes, the thought of the Russian cosmists. The ‘obedient Jabber-sheep’ bring to mind the ‘Legend of the Grand Inquisitor’. And so on: the list could be continued if one wished.
At the same time, the text is difficult to attribute: it is syncretic and does not belong to any of the philosophical schools known to me. There inevitably arises the question of the extent to which a synthesis of ideas on different levels, from different times, and potentially contradicting one another, contributes to the logical impeccability of the text itself. But I will leave that question outside the framework of the present review.
A far more substantial defect of the Gospel is that it does not create a coherent ontological system and does not answer a series of fundamental questions confronting philosophy. In the end, the text is too short to answer them. Of course, it is an obvious given that the centre of gravity of almost any religious composition is shifted from ontology to soteriology. But are there here any purely soteriological answers? Does the Gospel describe a coherent and comprehensible ‘path to salvation’? It seems that attempts at such answers have been made, but each of the attempts turns out to be isolated from those that follow or precede it. In particular, the fourth chapter proposes, as a ‘method of spiritual labour’, a prayer to the Angel of Death, and the fifth, a battle with the Jabberwock. In what way does the Angel of Death relate to the Jabberwock? Are these characters part of a single mythology, or are they arbitrarily taken from different mythological systems and used by the author for a momentary purpose, only to be cast aside afterwards? What is their ontological status? Are both the Angel of Death and the Jabberwock discoverable in the ‘world of things’, or is their place of dwelling the intelligible world, or do they inhabit certain ‘heavens’ of which the Gospel of the Little Prince, unlike the real Gospels, does not speak, or, finally, should they be sought only in the space of one’s own fantasy?
The text gives us no answers, and in general it prefers to communicate with its reader not in a philosophical and rational language, but in the language of mystical revelation—which poses before us the problem of the verification of that very revelation, a problem which in the world religions is partly removed by tradition and by a significant number of believers ready to acknowledge the authority of one or another scripture. I venture to suggest that in the present case both the one and the other are absent.
I am obliged to note as well certain other defects of the Gospel that strike an educated reader: its anti-Semitism, its deliberate and exaggerated obscurantism, its generally anti-intellectual tone, its energetic militarism, and finally its masculinocentrism, bordering on a denial of the significance of woman in the modern world. Woman is allotted merely the role of a ‘flower’, of which one must take care ‘without becoming like her’. Such a simplified, patriarchal understanding of Woman was left behind by social thought as long ago as the nineteenth century.
Summing up, I note that before us is a most interesting specimen of a pseudo-religious text, which demonstrates that the creators of today’s cults are actively serviced by the entire arsenal of philosoph;mes available to their understanding, striving to catch in their ‘nets’ the greatest possible number of followers. Alas—or fortunately—the Gospel does not have any significant intellectual potential to attract to the new cult, whose doctrinally constitutive writing it is, a genuinely sophisticated reader.
Once again I would ask that my letter not be considered a full-fledged religious-studies expert assessment: it deserves only the modest name of a philosophical essay. I thank you for the most interesting occasion for its creation!

Respectfully,

Doctor habilitatus (Philosophy)
Full Professor
Head of the Department of Philosophy
of the [name withheld] state university

A. I. Berdichev

I remembered Berdichev from my student years. It was he, a good-looking, smooth-tongued postgraduate, who directed our discussion club, in which Nazarov laboured as a political orator. In the nearly twenty years that had passed, the young postgraduate had managed to defend his habilitation and to sit down in the chair of a department head. And God be with him . . . but I could not in any way rid myself of the feeling that the review, for all the friendliness and affability of the still-young professor, was a spit in the soul of ‘The Oasis.’ Berdichev had approached the Gospel with his tailor’s yardstick, measured it, discovered a discrepancy with the prescribed or simply fashionable standards of thought—and branded it, hanging on the book all the possible vulgar labels he was capable of hanging on it. He might have shown more imagination: it is even embarrassing to read such banalities from a doctor habilitatus. ‘Anti-Semitism’ . . . How about the New Testament: does Alexei Ilyich not find aggressive Judeophobia in it as well? ‘Energetic militarism’ . . . Really now? ‘Woman is allotted merely the role of a flower’ . . . But between Man and the Prince there is no equals sign: the Prince, to use Berdichev’s high-flown language, is a spiritual category, not a biological one! Can the full professor really not have understood that? And how, on the other hand, could he have understood it? He never knelt by that larch tree . . .
And what self-conceit! ‘Consider my text a philosophical essay’! Oh, undoubtedly, we will publish it in the posthumous collected works too, do not doubt it . . .
And this man was a mentor of the young! For how many years already . . .
Is it not strange that Mother Olga and Berdichev blame Darya’s teacher for directly opposite things, though: the first for propaganda of gay marriage, the second for ‘patriarchal masculinocentrism’? Religion and science, incidentally, very often do not get on. In one thing, however, they displayed unanimity: he’s not ours!—and not ours!—after him, after him!
For a while I tried to work out what I might write in reply, and struggled with a momentary wish to forward Berdichev’s review to Karolina. But Karolina would not have coped with this ‘giant of thought’; she would not have found, at her sixteen years, the sharpness and polish of mind needed to argue with many-headed academicism. What am I saying, ‘at sixteen’! I, at my thirty-nine, could not think of anything! And was it even worth thinking of anything? Alexei Ilyich, in sending me his review, was surely full of the most sincere friendliness and, of course, considered that he was doing a good deed. Reading his letter, I almost physically felt the elasticity of the walls of the bubble iridescent with every colour of the philosophical concepts in which his own, in its way happy and well-wishing mind dwelt. Where was I to pierce that bubble? With what weapon? To what end?
So I went to bed having got nothing for my trouble, leaving the review of the doctor habilitatus without a reply and reading, as consolation, the sixth little chapter of the Gospel before sleep.

11

The Chapter on the Beasts of the Desert

1. Where is it better to live: in a cemetery or in a desert? Let each decide for himself.
2. The cemetery is captivating in its motley graves, the brightness of its cemetery flowers, the variety of the forms of its tombstones, the mendacious profundity of its memorial inscriptions. But let us not condemn the Prince, who often chooses the desert.
3. In the desert one day is like another, the same sun by day, and the same stars by night. This repetitiveness polishes the mind, making it supple and sensitive.
4. Love the desert, if you can live in it! Nowhere will you find so much food for the heart, nowhere will you experience the same quiet joy. Not for nothing did the Author of the Tale call the desert the most beautiful place on earth.
5. The King of Kings himself withdrew into the desert, giving himself up to sublime thoughts, and had there wondrous and terrible encounters.
6. Meanwhile, beasts also breed in the desert.
7. As the ant-lion creates a funnel in the sand, so the false prophet forms around himself a funnel into which the unfortunate slide down.
8. Some strew the slopes of their funnel with the skulls of dead thinkers and cry aloud: come to us! What a wealth of thought we have, and what a feast of knowledge! How merrily these skulls glitter in the sun!
9. Others cry: only in me, at the bottom of my funnel, is the spring of the water of life! Yet you’ll find there nothing but dry sand and the jaws of a predatory insect.
10. Yet others, like hyenas, drag away the corpses of the Big Beasts, carefully gnaw the bones, and jealously see to it that no one who stands in line behind them receives an undue portion.
11. But the Prince is not a hyena and will not set to gnawing bones, even those of the Big Beasts. He, when his time comes, will set off to seek the Giants now living, and not those who have left behind them only a skeleton.
12. There are also other robbers: they tempt the traveller to gaze at mirages.
13. Mirages look even more seductive than the motley flowers of the cemetery. But they are only mirages. One who wishes to gaze at mirages need not even have left the cemetery: the wreaths on the graves are short-lived, but at least one can take them in one’s hands.
14. Hard is life in the desert! So few are the wanderers, and so many are the hunters after them!
15. But let the Prince clothe himself in his everyday galabiya, put on a keffiyeh against the scorching sun, take in his hands the staff of patience, and go through the desert, turning nowhere aside! Neither the ant-lions, nor the hyenas, nor the contemplators of mirages have any power over the one who has the dignity of a Prince.
16. Meeting a beast of the desert, do not enter into an argument with him. Pass by. Do not turn round, hearing behind you growling, squealing and yapping.
17. Only for the sake of guarding one’s Little Sheep may a Prince enter into struggle with a beast. How much use there is in such a struggle, let time show.
18. But it is rarely so, too, that the Little Sheep follow the Prince into the dead desert. Little Sheep love juicy cemetery grass.
19. Only the Fox faithfully follows the Prince to any place and patiently endures all hardships.
20. The foxes of the desert have large ears. Let him who follows the Prince acquire large ears! Let him listen to the Prince while there is still time!

Yes, the eighth clause of this chapter would have been a good answer to Berdichev! Though Alexei Ilyich, having read it as a laconic objection to his brilliant, witty, and wordy review, would only have smiled, remarking something like: ‘When sectarians run out of logical arguments, they begin to refer to their sacred texts, not understanding that their writings have no authority in anyone’s eyes but their own.’ Therefore let us better take the sixteenth to heart . . .

12

Sunday, like Saturday, turned out to be a saturated day, which from the very morning brought new troubles.
In the morning Kristina rang me and announced that at midday she intended to be at my flat.
‘A last chance to set the erring sheep on the path of truth?’ I enquired with irony.
‘I do not know about the sheep—but yes, this is the last attempt, Oleg!’ my ex-wife confirmed by phone. ‘If you do not listen to me now, then—’
‘—then you will wash your hands of it with a clear conscience,’ I finished for her. ‘Come.’
The reader will perhaps think that the author of these notes too meekly endured all the feminine whims and even the bad deeds of his ex-wife, but the true reason was that I, like Kristina, had decided to do everything to clear my conscience. Who knows, perhaps she was coming to me in order to apologise? Funny, that: Kristina was giving me a chance, and I was giving her one too. In the end, we had lived eight years side by side, a child had been born to us, and that child too had lived in the white world for a while . . .
It had to happen that, as soon as I hung up the receiver, a call came in from Karolina.
‘Uncle Oleg, hello, how are things? No new errands? Is everything well with you?’
‘Everything with me is . . . complicated!’ I admitted—and at once told her about the coming visit of my ex-wife.
‘Do I remember correctly that it was Kristina who made your . . . mentor run away, gossiping about her?’ the girl asked in a quiet voice (the day before I had had to tell her that too). ‘So . . . Do you . . . need help?’
‘I cannot imagine what you could possibly help me with here!’ I answered honestly.
‘Do not be in a hurry . . . to devalue my efforts!’ Carey was offended. ‘Though they may be childish, and ridiculous . . . You know, I wanted to talk with your Kristina anyway!’
‘You?’ I was astonished. ‘With Kristina?! I could not have imagined in my worst nightmare that you would start talking with her . . . Most likely nothing will come of that conversation: she will swallow you and lick her lips afterwards.’
‘Then it will be a lesson to me!’ she would not give up. ‘ “Let him not fear the storms of life!” So you permit me to come and talk with her?’
‘How can I forbid you?’ I remarked reasonably. ‘Kristina is a free person, for whom I bear no responsibility. Well, come too, kleine Hexe Annabel, and make a hullabaloo here! At least it will not be boring . . .’
‘Who is kleine Hexe Annabel?’ Carey inquired with suspicion.
‘Little Witch Annabel,’ I explained. ‘In childhood I had a book about her for extracurricular reading in German. With pictures!’
‘Well, we read different books in childhood, Uncle Oleg . . . I am getting ready and coming! Send me the address!’

13

Kristina rang the bell about forty minutes after our telephone conversation. She came through into the sitting room, carrying her head proudly; she settled on the sofa, crossing one leg over the other. ‘That dark-red blouse clearly suits her!’ I noted to myself. ‘Like an Easter egg. A very little bit too young for her age, though . . .’
‘You, my dear, have quite taken leave of your reason,’ she began without any preamble. ‘You have quarrelled with everyone you could quarrel with, and all over nothing. This might even damage your career in future, do you understand? Who would want to keep in a firm such a troublemaker, who cannot talk to people? Olezhek, you have gone mad! When I left on Thursday, I saw you under that ridiculous little tree of yours: a heart-rending sight . . . I was glad to learn, from Savely Ivanovich, that your Darya is after all not your mistress; on the other hand, you treat your guru as if she were your mistress, or even worse: like a boy in love would treat the object of his love. Simply indecent . . . How did you come to such a life?’
‘And she is sure that her dark-red blouse gives her additional rights over me,’ the thought came to me. ‘Almost any woman lives convinced that she has her “commanding height”: the advantages of beauty, youth, health. True, but the advantages wear out, and she, not noticing or preferring not to notice, goes on behaving like a spoiled little girl. What an ordinary story, and what a sad one! And anyway, what sort of word is that—“mistress”? Is that what one calls the woman-friend of an unmarried man?’
‘It is a long story,’ I said aloud. ‘And it is hardly likely to be comprehensible.’
‘Then give it a try!’ she suggested. ‘I am in no hurry. I am not Einstein, but I am not entirely stupid either.’
‘You are not in a hurry, but I . . .’
‘Surely you are not expecting a young mistress?’ Kristina smiled, again using that word which irritated me. ‘No matter, your mistress will wait! You have the whole day ahead of you.’
‘Better answer me yourself: last time were you not . . . well, at least slightly embarrassed?’
‘Embarrassed about you? Of course I was! That is why I am here today.’
‘About yourself,’ I explained patiently. ‘About your own act.’
Kristina raised her eyebrows:
‘What act? Was it I, then, who seduced and abandoned the boy? You cultists certainly know how to put the blame on the wrong shoulders!’
Well, that would have been the place to end it . . . I was intending to move to the main question, which I had, it is true, already voiced at the end of our failed rendezvous. What did she need me for? Did she still love me? If she did love me, then where had her love been hiding for two years?
I did not have time: the stamping of young feet was heard in the hall.

14

‘Forgive me, good people, your door is not locked!’ Carey burst into the room, young, fresh, in a fitted summer dress flaring below, of a colour midway between light green and beige (pistachio, I think they call it now?) I positively stood with my mouth open: for the first time in all our acquaintance I saw her in a dress. ‘Allow me to introduce myself: Karolina! Oleg’s assistant, arrived for the morning briefing. And you are most likely his ex-wife—uh-huh!’ Carey, with all the unceremoniousness of youth, looked Kristina up and down. ‘Sorry, I keep forgetting by what time it was arranged . . . But surely you will not show me the door?’
‘I did not know that lawyers at Voskhod have assistants,’ Kristina Viktorovna uttered at last.
‘Yes, you can order them on the State Services portal,’ Carey confirmed with an imperturbable air: only the deliberate seriousness of her face betrayed the irony. ‘You go into your personal account, choose an assistant, and fill in the request. There is increased demand for blondes, so Oleg took a risk and took a dark-haired one. It seems he is pleased!’ Carey plumped noisily onto the sofa, forcing Kristina to move to the edge, precisely into the corner where three days before Darya Arkadyevna had sat.
‘I am astonished, Oleg, that she calls you simply by your name . . . Do you still go to school, little one?’ Kristina addressed the new guest with benevolent condescension.
‘Women,’ Carey pronounced sententiously, ignoring the question of whether she went to school, ‘must support one another in the face of patriarchal oppression, and not use ageism as a weapon in the struggle with rivals, real or imagined. Because that weapon easily turns against them. No one will think that you are still at school, Kristina, do not worry about yourself . . .’
‘Carey, that is not nice,’ I muttered, embarrassed by her behaviour.
‘Perhaps!’ the girl agreed. ‘As is hinting that I am very young, and therefore quite stupid. I may be stupid, but not completely, and I will prove it now. I will ask you a few questions, Kristina: you do not mind?’
‘For you,’ my ex-wife responded with dignity, ‘I am Kristina Viktorovna.’
Carey gave a short chuckle:
‘Very well, then for you I am Karolina Mikhailovna . . . Tell me, please: you and Oleg are divorced, are you not? And what, then—did he cheat on you with some long-legged chick, or did you divorce “just like that”, without any fault of his? It seems that it was even you who initiated it?’
‘You yourself know the answers, though I did not expect . . .’ Kristina was taken aback. ‘Allow me—what has this to do with you?’
‘It will become clear now,’ my ‘assistant’ responded imperturbably. ‘Bear with me for the smallest moment. I have been told that you have acquired a spiritual father. And Oleg, imagine, has also acquired a spiritual father—a spiritual mother! What a stupid feminine form . . . In general, a spiritual director—I hope everyone understands what I am talking about. And you, as ill luck would have it, drove her out of here a couple of days ago, telling a piece of gossip about how she had hopped into bed with some sorcerer—that is also true, is it not?’
‘Listen, who are you, anyway?!’ Kristina exclaimed with more energy than the norms of good tone allowed. ‘Who gave you the right to interfere?!’
‘To interfere in what?’ Carey replied mockingly, observing her through half-lowered lashes. ‘In your relations? Only you are divorced, that is the trouble . . . But I will not “make petty mischief”, as my grandfather puts it: divorced people too sometimes come back together again. And it is precisely about that that I wanted to talk with you—will you permit me? I am, of course, no one to you, but even a cat is allowed to look at a king—and in Russia kings were abolished altogether after 1917!
‘So, you and Oleg divorced voluntarily,’ the sixteen-year-old girl continued, while I still could not recover from my astonishment at her glibness, her boldness, the coherence of her speech. ‘You “terminated the contractual relationship by mutual consent”, to use legal language. Now you wish to renew these relations on the former terms. But—forgive me, please, the cynical terms I am about to use!—the “market” has changed in these two years. Supply has changed, demand has changed, some things have fallen in price, others, on the contrary, have risen. The demand for Oleg, for instance, has risen a little: he is a lonely, interesting man with his own flat, a decent job, not an alcoholic, not a womaniser; he has overcome a protracted depression; he managed not to die of a heart attack before forty—such men, at his age, are worth looking for! The demand for a woman’s beauty, on the contrary, falls with each passing year . . . Believe me, I am not triumphing when I say this: I am in the same boat as you, and I am sincerely, sincerely sorry for you. No sooner do we grow up finally than we begin to pretend that we are younger than we are—hurtful, unjust, but alas, that is how nature has arranged it! And so, you think that you can return to the market and conclude the old deal on the former terms. It's a pity, but no! You must begin all over again, negotiate with the seller anew. But what do you do? You drive out an important counterparty! That significantly worsens your chances: you risk the fact that another buyer will snap up your seller!’
Kristina sat there quite as stunned as I was by the eloquence of this ‘chit’ and by the way her words sounded so grown-up.
‘Kristina Viktorovna, I am not your enemy,’ Carey added in a different tone, looking at my ex-wife with compassion—and almost laid her hand over hers, but at the last moment thought better of it. ‘I am not at all against being a mediator in your “negotiations”, though no one invited me to the role. If you come together again, I will only be glad! Probably . . . But I wish you would come together again taking mutual interests into account, all right?’
Mockery could still be endured, but compassion from a ‘schoolgirl’ Kristina Viktorovna could not: her face, almost always calm and balanced, went red with anger in blotches.
‘What is this chit permitting herself?!’ she exploded. ‘Who authorised her? “Mediator”, indeed . . . Either I will leave now, or she will! Oleg! Make a decision, at last!’
‘Karolina is in no hurry,’ I responded, looking at one point on the floor. ‘She and I still have things to do.’
Kristina rose from the sofa.
‘Shall I see you out?’ Carey asked in a solicitous tone, as though nothing had happened.
‘No, thank you, my dear! My ex-husband will see me out.’
I had to follow her out into the hall, where Kristina, having put on her outdoor shoes, looked at me for a long, long time. At last I raised my eyes to her. I said:
‘Please forgive her for all the rude things she said. But you know, Kristina, I have never yet seen such a convincing and rapid demonstration of the Eastern doctrine of karma. After all, only three days have passed . . .’
Turning round and without saying goodbye, my ex-wife left the flat.

15

Returning to the room, I found Carey quite different: timid, subdued.
‘Sit closer: why have you sat so far away,’ she asked me in a quiet voice. ‘Did I . . . behave very badly?’
‘Honestly, I do not know!’ I admitted. ‘At first it seemed to me that all of it really was bad. But of the genuinely bad things here, there was only the cynicism, only that frankness with which you spoke of the “market of relations”.’
The ty which I had used so easily and simply in addressing her that morning now once again would not come out.
‘It is a cynical time, now,’ the girl remarked. 'And in general—she wounded me, and I became very, very, very offended on your behalf . . .’
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
‘Do not be upset, please,’ I muttered. ‘The adult world is cruel; if one cries over every trifle, no heart will be enough. You spoke splendidly, like a lawyer in court, vividly, convincingly; I watched with pleasure. And the dress suits you too . . .’
‘There, why did you have to!’ the girl exclaimed in vexation. ‘I did not come here for that! I came to save you, not to hear how the dress suits me!’
‘Forgive me!’ I was quite abashed, realising that I had paid a compliment to a girl who was indeed very young, but a girl all the same, and not to an imaginary boy. And yes, we had established relations of the uncle-and-niece type, but she is not my real niece. Incidentally, one usually does not address nieces as vy . . .
Carey looked at me gratefully, hearing that ‘Forgive me’. She smiled faintly.
It is unknown how it would all have ended, but, to my great relief, the phone rang. I indicated with a gesture that I needed to take the call, and went out to the kitchen.
‘Oleg Valeryevich, good morning!’ Darya began to say into the receiver. ‘Forgive me for troubling you on a Sunday, and ringing myself, but . . . Would you please carry out one small request of mine? You may also refuse, no harm will come of it . . .’
‘With pleasure, Darya Arkadyevna!’ I responded.
The request consisted in driving her to an address in the city, and afterwards returning her to her home. We agreed to meet in about forty or fifty minutes.
Returning to the room, I discovered that Carey was gone. On the table a note was waiting for me.

I have gone. I will ring tomorrow. I am all upside down again! Lately I do nothing but leave, in order to sort myself out, it sounds like a joke . . .
P. S. The fox on your desk is charming!

16

I thought that Darya Arkadyevna would ask me to drive her to another client, or, let us say, to a shop. I was mistaken. The navigator brought us to a quiet little street in a provincial district of the city.
Darya asked me to park opposite an unprepossessing little wooden house with six windows on its fa;ade, three above and three below—the same peasant izba, only two-storeyed. In our city one can still come across such houses here and there. Their century is, of course, drawing to a close.
Getting out of the car, she looked at this thoroughly unremarkable little house for a long, long time—I lost count of the minutes. I noticed tears in her eyes, which completely astonished me: until then I had somehow not thought that Dorothea Arkadyevna was capable of weeping at all, like an ordinary woman.
Ah, yes: it seems I once read in Paustovsky that only deeply elderly people weep without being ashamed of their tears. Darya wept without hiding, like a very old person.
Laying her hand on her heart, my companion bowed low to the house. She crossed the road and, crouching down, left something in the grass at the lower row of logs. She came back to me.
‘What did you leave there?’ I asked timidly.
‘A figure of epoxy resin,’ she smiled at me, stubbornly shaking her head to shake off the tears. ‘A figure of the teacher and the girl sitting at his feet on her knees.’
‘Ah!’ at last I understood (truly, I am Pozdeyev—in plainer words, a real Russian Epimetheus). ‘This must be the house where you lived for a month and a half, fourteen years ago!’
‘Precisely!’ she nodded. ‘On the second floor. I had a tiny kitchen, a room, and a storeroom. Do you see the entryway? That is a separate entrance. There are no places more precious than those where we received teaching, anyone will tell you that. Ugh, Lord, what am I doing—I have bawled my eyes out, it is even shameful . . . As such, one ought not to cry, there is no fortitude in it. I am a woman, though; sometimes it is hard to hold back. Well, there—looking at me, you yourself are now . . . Let us go, my dear.’

17

In the car Darya said:
‘May I ask you to be with me today, not to go far away? I am, of course, behaving badly: I am not your sister, not your wife, not your mistress, to dispose of your time like this . . .’
‘You are my—’ I remembered Carey's funny word ‘spiritual mother’, and smiled. ‘You are my Prince, and therefore I gladly obey,’ saying this, I finally understood that ‘Prince’ in the ‘Christianity of the Little Prince’ is a concept having nothing at all to do with the sex of a person. ‘And as for sisters, not every sister needs to be listened to, especially a cousin . . . Do you know that Olga came to see me yesterday?’
In a few words I told of my conversation with Olga. Darya listened to me attentively and did not even smile.
‘Perhaps she ought to have been allowed to be “church warden”,’ she remarked pensively. 'A bad peace is better than a good quarrel. Olga was already envious of our class monitor back in school, though what was there to envy, as though the position were a great one . . .’
‘On no account!’ I protested energetically. 'What is this purely Russian submission to fate and unnecessary self-sacrifice? On no account, Darya Arkadyevna, believe me! In spiritual matters you may be a professor, but in worldly matters you are a mere child!'
‘I do not like biting!’ she drawled plaintively. 'I am not a little animal . . .’
‘I am not asking you to bite—I will bite all of them for you myself. But showing the teeth sometimes certainly does no harm. You are pale again today . . .’
‘I spoke recently with the Serpent.’
Her remark did not even reach my consciousness at once. There was no knowing what sort of serpent Dorothea Arkadyevna might have been speaking with! She was constantly talking with everyone: with the old house, with the larch, with the pregnant hedgehog . . . Only a few seconds later did a wave of horror pass through me.
‘How,’ I was lost, 'with the Serpent? The very one? In the suit, raincoat, and hat?'
‘Everyone sees her differently.’
‘And . . . you already know the date?'
My companion nodded.
I was embarrassed to ask when—but Darya, after a couple of seconds, said it herself:
‘Soon, very soon.’
‘Something . . . chronic?’ I suggested.
‘No! Simply—how shall I explain it to you? “The Little Bull, the tiny dear, / Is walking to his stall. / The plank is ending soon, it's clear— / And he’s about to fall.” ’ Darya recited the famous children’s poem lightly, calmly, in a detached manner.
‘And—nothing can be done?’
‘No,’ she smiled brightly. ‘I am telling you: the plank is ending. No one is to blame except me. In my past life I committed a great sin at my present age, that is why. Do not grieve, everything is for the best.’
‘But . . . surely not today?’ I clarified with apprehension.
‘No, not today! Do not worry, we will still say goodbye.’
I exhaled with relief, having decided to myself: next week I will take her to a doctor. Everyone makes mistakes, even saints! Why, one asks, can mystics not make mistakes?

 
18

When we arrived at the ‘doll’s house’, Darya did not go into the house at once, but decided to walk around the whole plot in a circle. At each tree she stopped for a minute or two, touching its trunk with her hands, and sometimes with her forehead. I believe that is what Buddhists do, receiving or giving blessings. I wandered after her at some distance.
A couple of times, glancing back at me, she smiled guiltily, as if to say: bear with me a little longer.
Reaching the tall juniper, the mistress of the house sank down on one of the benches as though strengthless, leaned her back against the tree, and sang quietly a song to the music of Alexander Morozov and the verses of Nikolai Rubtsov—a simple and universally known song about how the chamber is bright from the night star, so like a folk song (I myself for a long time considered it folk, before I found information about the authors online). She had a small singing voice, but a true ear; in her singing, more than in her speech, an elusive provincial accent made itself apparent.
‘My God, she is not even, in essence, beautiful!’ I thought with an acute tenderness, looking at her. ‘And yet, were she to ask me now to marry her, I would agree without thinking. I would live with her “just like that”, like a brother with a sister, if only so that there would be someone to bring water from the well in the morning. Or should I propose?’
Darya caught my gaze. She shook her head negatively—or perhaps it only seemed so to me.
‘Go into the house, light the stove,’ she suggested to me. ‘You know how now.’

19

‘You know, of course, that the Gospel requires the Fox to listen while there is still time?’ I asked, when the mistress of the house joined me in the kitchen a few minutes later (the firewood was already crackling merrily in the stove). ‘And for one to listen, another has to tell.’
‘Have you at least had lunch, Oleg Valeryevich?’ she answered a question with a question. ‘Fine words butter no parsnips.’
‘Yes, I grabbed a shawarma on the way to you.’
‘Well and good . . . So what shall I tell you?’
‘For instance, how you drove Olga out of your little flat because of the yellow scarf,’ I suggested with humour.
‘True, that happened,’ she confirmed, frowning slightly. ‘The Prince left me money to live on—at first I was very embarrassed, but I took it, because where else was I to get it? I was not yet earning anything myself, though I was already making various trinkets. And so, out of that money, having pinched a little, I bought him a beautiful yellow scarf.’
‘Why yellow, incidentally?’
‘What do you mean, “why”? Because the Prince had a yellow scarf in the illustration in Saint-Exup;ry's book, don’t you remember? And you were looking for mysterious meanings? No, I simply wanted to show that I recognised in him the one he writes his little book about—though by May a scarf was already unnecessary. He was very touched! But Olga had turned up even earlier: she had wheedled my address out of me by phone. She turned up—and began questioning me about my “seminarian”.’
‘On the grounds of being the elder sister,’ I guessed. ‘By the way, is she really older than you?’
‘Only by a couple of months, if that . . . We are the same age! How else would we have been in the same class? Wait, let me take up my sewing,’ the mistress of the workshop suddenly asked. ‘I ought to finish two whole orders and deliver them soon, and I am not managing: I am managing nothing . . .’
I thought with repentance that I, as a ‘disciple’, might also have assigned her a small stipend, instead of leaving her dependent on irregular earnings. Though she would probably not have taken it? True, I had never offered . . .
Returning from the workroom with her sewing and a table lamp, laying neat little stitches, Darya continued:
‘So, my “seminarian” was it she started asking be about. She was interested in whether I had moved because I was expecting a child, and all sorts of such details. I answered more and more sparingly, because I did not want to lie, and I could not, of course, tell the truth. That was when I understood that the people closest to you in blood, in age, in upbringing are capable of being as distant as . . . as another planet!’
‘And the other way round,’ I added. ‘A person infinitely distant from us in experience, in education, in language, can be as close as a brother or a sister.’
‘And the other way round,’ my companion agreed. ‘Surprising, but even in religion. If my teacher had become, for example, a Buddhist, even that would have troubled me little. What—would you say that is a sin?’ (I, of course, said nothing and thought nothing.) ‘Oh, I do not care either way . . . Then Olga’s gaze fell on the scarf. “And what is this?”—“Leave it, do not touch it,” I asked. “It is a present.”—“Well, well!” she really did not touch the scarf, but she pulled the receipt out of the bag they had given me in the shop, and whistled, “What expensive presents your seminarian gives you!”—“It is not he to me, but I to him. Set it down!” I remember I said it just like that: “Set it down!” Properly it should be “Put it down”, should it not?’
‘I think so,’ I confirmed.
‘I was never literate!’ Darya complained. ‘I still write with mistakes . . .’
‘Come now: what are you saying against yourself!’
‘But why am I saying anything against myself? Make me write even a page, then take it and count the mistakes. You will find about six, no fewer . . . Olga put down the receipt—and began to look at me attentively, and I at her, and I went all numb with horror.’
‘Why “with horror”?’
‘Because there was no way for her to guess! No one saw the Prince and me when we left the gymnasium, and afterwards, of course, I did not open my soul to a single living person! But she guessed . . .’
‘How?!’ I exclaimed.
‘That is what I am coming to. On the table, next to the scarf, lay Plato’s Dialogues. The Prince had left them: having read me something, he sometimes left me a book for the night.’
‘Plato, of all things?’ I interrupted, angry with myself for my impatience. ‘Plato must have been difficult for you, a schoolgirl?’
‘No, not in the least! And when, if not at that age, is Plato needed? For you and me it is already a bit late . . . The Prince gave me these profundities in small doses, only what he himself liked—and, most importantly, what he knew I would not reject. Oh, what a clever man he was! How he managed to select everything that was needed precisely by a seventeen-year-old girl, by this strange, friendless, withdrawn girl! Everything he read entered my mind like a knife into butter—and I still remember it all!’
I said nothing, thinking that from the point of view of sensible grown-up people, these instructions looked incredibly absurd. Olga, in my place, would certainly have said that ‘one crank with wild fantasies’ had found another ‘touched’ girl —and had unhinderedly made an impressionable girl, yesterday’s adolescent, even more abnormal, putting thoughts into her brain that were beyond her. Olga, indeed! I myself, a month ago, would probably have said the same thing.
‘Besides Plato, who else among the philosophers lay on your table?’ I went on asking.
‘The Singing Heart by Ivan Ilyin,’ Darya answered calmly, laying her even stitches. ‘Kierkegaard.’
‘Kierkegaard?’ I had only heard the name before.
‘Yes: the Prince once read me his little sermon, in full. “A Discourse on Why We Are Always in the Wrong Before God.” It is astonishing to say, funny even, but I remember it as though it were yesterday! Not word for word—but ask me, and I will explain to you right now why we are always in the wrong before God.’
‘A dubious proposition,’ I remarked. ‘I see in it a sort of voluntary slavery, an eternal submission.’
‘No, no!’ my companion exclaimed vividly. ‘It is not about slavery! When you know that you are in the wrong anyway, and not only you, but anyone, the holiest person on earth, you begin to breathe more easily. You fuss less.’
‘A complicated thought, and I am not quite sure I am ripe for such thoughts, I do not even know whether I have fully understood this one,’ I had to admit. ‘The understanding dawned on me when you said “breathe more easily”, but I will leave you and I will lose it. And you, capable of such difficult thoughts, write with mistakes!’
‘With mistakes,’ she agreed. ‘And which is more important: to write without mistakes, or to know that we are in the wrong before God?’
‘How terribly I envy you!’ I repeated pensively what I had already said to her several days before. ‘Why did I, at my seventeen years, not come across such a teacher?’
‘And did you wait for him?’ she responded sternly, without a smile. ‘Did you beg for him at night?’
‘True: I did not wait, did not beg . . . But what happened next, when Olga saw Plato’s Dialogues on the table?’
‘She took them in her hands and asked with a smirk: who is it that is interested in pagan sages? Surely not my seminarian developing me? He overestimated my abilities, then . . . “Set it down at once!” I ordered, far more angrily. “It is not yours!” But her mischievous little hands had already opened the book and pulled out the Prince’s note.’
‘I hope not a love note?’ escaped me.
‘Are you not ashamed? No, not a love note: it was a quatrain from Rossetti, written in his clear, beautiful hand.’
‘Rossetti,’ I repeated, going through half-forgotten names in my memory. ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti?’
‘No, Christina: his sister . . . You ought to know her: she has the same name as your ex-wife!’ Darya teased me. ‘Shall I read it to you aloud?’
‘If it is not too much trouble . . .’

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
—Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
—From morn to night, my friend,
 
my companion pronounced without effort and with rather fine pronunciation, without tearing herself away from her work.
‘You know English too?’ I marvelled.
‘No, I do not know it, I simply memorised a couple of little verses, read a couple of little books . . . I will explain this quatrain to you especially. I myself asked the Prince to write me something on a sheet of paper, first, as a keepsake, and secondly . . . secondly, I was very frightened! It seemed to me—“seemed”, indeed: I believed it as holy truth!—that in the whole world no one understood me except this one man, but the teacher would leave, and I would remain alone, alone, alone in the whole world! Already at thirteen I began to have very vivid dreams, and gradually I learned to follow those dreams, to immerse myself in them in a waking state . . . But who, tell me, could appreciate that, to whom but the Prince could I explain it? How would I manage to combine this ability, which I did not want to betray, with adult life, with earning a living, with a family, with children? What would I become for my future family? Complete uncertainty—and the life ahead so long! Sometimes out of horror I would howl into my pillow whole nights through . . . I told him all of this. “I do not know, Dolly, what your life will be and how you will manage to live it,” he answered. “But, if only it works out, try to follow your own special path, however hard it may be, to the very end!” There and then he sat down at the table and from memory wrote me four lines from a poem by Christina Rossetti, and then read them aloud. I still keep that note, they will probably bury me with it . . .
‘And Olga was already unfolding it. Of course she recognised the handwriting! It was in that very handwriting that he wrote new words on the blackboard.
‘ “So that is it!” she drawled. “So that is who brings you Plato . . . Does Svetlana Borisovna know?” Svetlana Borisovna was the name of our headmistress.
‘That was when, Oleg Valeryevich,’ Darya smiled sadly ‘to use crude masculine language, the red mist came down. I snatched the note from her, seized the Dialogues, and was ready to kill her! To break her fingers—as much certainly. I drove her out. I am ashamed of it to this day. One must not quarrel with anyone without the most extreme need, and one must say thank you to everyone who has hurt you.’
‘That is pure masochism,' I muttered.
‘No, why masochism?’ my companion was surprised. ‘Simple common sense. If you have been hurt, you either deserved the hurt or you did not. If you deserved it, you are returning an old debt. If you did not, you will temper yourself, you will become stronger. That is why you say thank you: in both cases there is something to be grateful for! It was not worth driving my sister out, and my heart is still not at peace about it. But forgive me too: I was seventeen years old! And I also think: better at seventeen to be hot than cold, sensible, and slippery as a fish! Well, do you forgive me?’
‘You are asking forgiveness from me?’ I was taken aback.
‘From whom else? There is no one else here.’
‘I . . . I am sorry, I need to go out for a short while,’ the author of this manuscript admitted.
‘Of course . . . The toilet is in the corner of the plot,’ the hostess reported matter-of-factly.
I, however, did not need the toilet. Going out onto the porch, I took several deep breaths in and out. I would have smoked, if I smoked . . .

20

Returning, I announced (among other things, in order to get away more quickly from the theme of ‘forgiveness’, from the fact that I supposedly owed her forgiveness and was entitled to give it):
‘How I would like to see how your “lessons” went! Did you really sit before him on the floor, on your knees?’
‘Sometimes,’ Darya confirmed. ‘Wrapped in a plaid. It touched him, made him smile, and at the same time slightly annoyed him, but I explained to him that it was more comfortable for me that way, and, in the end, who was he to say how I ought best to listen? Not every time, and it is a trifle anyway. . .  Wait, I will bring you the Diary again!’
Returning with the Diary already familiar to me, she opened one of the May entries.
‘Read it! It is surely written there more precisely than I would remember it now . . .’

4 May 2009

The Prince is late, and I am worried. I mean to ring, but I do not dare. Who am I to find out where he is? I have no rights over him.
At last he comes.
‘You have missed supper, A. M.’ I try to make my voice sound stern. ‘Now you will go hungry.’
‘That is for the best,’ he explains. ‘I have brought you a text such that the food will not go down your throat.’
‘But I have already eaten. I was not going to wait for you!’
‘You are funny when you are angry . . .’
‘Now I will deliberately not be angry, so as not to give you pleasure!’
We go through into the room, and he takes a new book out of his bag. Plato.
All my mocking mood evaporates at once.
‘This is probably very difficult, A. M.,’ I say quietly, timidly. ‘I am hardly likely to understand it.’
‘You will understand it perfectly, Dolly! There is a heart in you, to which everything will be clear.’
‘That is, in plainer words, the only hope is the heart, because my brain is not fit for this task,’ I go on stubbornly.
‘How mocking you are . . . I am not forcing you! Let us put Plato aside and  talk of something else, then’
‘No, we will not put him aside,' I correct myself at once. ‘There is no time to put him aside . . . I am sorry!’
‘Not at all! First, a couple of words about Athens at that time.’
He tells me about Athens and about the essence of the accusations brought against Socrates. Then he reads the Apology of Socrates, in full.
What a shuddering book this is!
I have wrapped myself in the plaid, but a shiver runs through me. How could I have been joking an hour ago about all sorts of trifles like his dinner!
Tears roll down my cheeks.
‘This is precisely what happened to you,’ I whisper. ‘They slandered you, as they did him, and they accused you of the very same thing! Of corrupting the youth . . .’
‘Very flattering for me,’ he seems to smile, with the very corners of his lips. ‘Only, I am afraid, inaccurate: no one has executed me, here I am, before you, alive!’
‘For now . . . Though what am I saying . . . I promise you and I swear that you will always be alive for me.’
He shakes his head:
‘Do not make a mummy for worship out of me, Dolly. I never dreamed of lying in the Mausoleum.’
‘I am not making one,’ I answer vividly. ‘But is it really a sin to think of a person as always alive? Socrates knew that death does not exist. Otherwise where would his courage come from?’
The Prince nods.
‘Look how you have seized the most important thing in the Apology!’ he remarks. ‘And you were afraid you wouldn’t understand.’
Afterwards we talk of various things. I show him the storeroom I have fitted out for my ‘waking dreams’. He fully approves of my idea. He says:
‘You probably need manuals on meditation.’
‘The word “meditation” frightens me,’ I object.
‘The word frightens you, but the thing does not?’ He seems to find it amusing. ‘You are like a housewife who has already baked a hundred loaves but is afraid to say “dough” aloud.’
‘Yes, imagine that! After all, I am a Christian . . .’
‘Boethius was not ashamed to reason about meditation, and he was a Christian too.’
‘Ah yes, Boethius . . .’ I remember from the day before yesterday.
‘What do you think,’ he asks, ‘could Theodoric have executed Boethius precisely because he meditated too much? And considering that Theodoric was your namesake, your belligerence is understandable . . .’
The death of a martyr is no occasion for laughter, but we both laugh. This laughter is not about Boethius: it is precisely about my ‘warlikeness’.
Surprising: Theodoric was my namesake!
‘Very well,’ I give in: I do not want to be as spiteful and stupid as Theodoric. ‘I will have one quick look at your “manuals on meditation”. But do not expect that I will worship Eastern idols!’
‘Idols in general should not be worshipped,’ he says pensively. ‘Neither Eastern nor Christian.’
‘Do Christian idols also exist, then?’
‘They do,’ the Prince answers, ‘and the longer you live, the more of them you will notice.’
There is some wisdom in this, and I do not yet understand it. I need to think about it more.
We say goodbye. The Prince leaves. I watch his figure through the window, screwing up my eyes against the setting sun.
Something makes me throw the casement wide open.
‘Alexander Mikhailovich!’ I call to him, leaning out almost to the waist, and I am frightened at my own boldness. ‘Alexander Mikhailovich!’
He hears and returns. He stands under my window and raises his head to me.
‘Alexander Mikhailovich,’ I say more quietly. ‘I only wanted . . . You may come to me at any time, do you hear? At any time!’
Barely have I said it than horror comes over me. What is this, what for? Do I myself understand what I am saying?
The Prince smiles calmly at me and answers:
‘Dolly, I will come tomorrow at the usual time.’

‘Well, what?’ Darya asked me, taking the Diary out of my hands: she had been watching me jealously all this time. ‘What will that loose tongue of yours say now?’
‘My loose tongue, Dorothea Arkadyevna, will say only what comes into its owner’s head . . . And in the owner’s head there are several thoughts. The first: where on earth did your teacher acquire his universal education, the depth of his mind, his broad view of things?’
‘I would gladly answer you! I don’t know, unfortunately . . .’
‘My second thought: you seem to have surpassed him, and he knew that you would! The Prince was merely an intellectual, a philosopher, and you are a meditator and a mystic.’
‘How can you say such a thing!’ my companion objected with a reproach in her voice. ‘How can one measure people at all, as though they were dolls of different heights? Does it matter who surpassed whom, and whether anyone surpassed anyone? The truth is that the me of today would not exist without him. There would be a completely different me, and that other one might not have become either a meditator or a mystic. Or perhaps that other me would not have existed at all. Suppose I, not knowing how people ought to treat one another, had married in haste, at eighteen, and my husband had dragged me about by the hair, and one day I had stepped in front of a train. Do you not believe it? I am even frightened to imagine it. But the most frightening thing of all is to imagine that I would have lost my nerve that day, the third of April, and not gone up to him! That is what matters, and not your “surpassed”, “did not surpass”. . . And what else did you think?’
‘That . . . but I’d better keep silent,’ I evaded an answer.
‘No, speak, if you please!’
‘If only I knew that you would not be angry with me . . .’
‘It’s my business whether I am angry or not. Speak!’
‘I thought: and after everything you wrote in the Diary, you continue to assert that you were not in love with him . . .’
Here something unexpected happened. Darya Arkadyevna blushed slightly. She carefully closed the Diary. She stood up. And she hit me on the head with it, some three times, not painfully exactly, but sensibly, saying as she did so: ‘There’s for you! There’s for you! There’s for you!’ She laughed ringingly and explained her laughter:
‘If only you could have seen your face just now!’
‘Dorothea Arkadyevna, I really could not have imagined . . .’
‘Ah, well . . . Have I done you in? No, it is nothing, there will not even be a bump . . .’
Having stopped laughing and sat down in her place, she explained quite calmly:
‘No, Oleg Valeryevich, you are not right all the same. Do not believe everything that girls write in their diaries at seventeen! I myself might have made up heaven knows what that evening, but in reality I was simply confusing love with gratitude. And real love for a man, the kind that takes your breath away, I have never experienced. Well, and now would you like to hear what sort of suitors I had?’

 
21

I notice that, however conscientiously I try to record our conversations, I do not manage to recreate them exactly. Dialogues in life are always rougher than on paper, unless we are watching a theatrical production or a feature film. Speakers forget simple words, fall silent, giving themselves over to memories, interrupt themselves over household trifles like a fallen skein of thread that has to be picked up from the floor before it rolls away altogether . . . In the end, there are conversations one wishes to preserve letter by letter, and there are comparatively less important ones. That is why I will retell the following story in the third person.
In all her life Darya Arkadyevna had two ‘suitors’: Vitaly and Daniil. The first was found for her by Olga: the sisters had by that time not exactly made up altogether, but had at least resumed communication. The second was found by her friends from the technical college.
Vitya really did turn out to be a seminarian and a future priest in search of a matushka! Olga seemed to be trying to bring to life a legend she had once created, and to justify after the fact her sister’s disappearance from the gymnasium.
Vitya was remembered as a joker, boorish but charming. He was not unattractive to the eighteen-year-old girl; with him, perhaps, everything would have been arranged . . . if Darya had not taken it into her head to tell her future husband about the Prince. Hearing the story, the almost-priest grew haggard and dark. He disappeared for a while under some unclear pretext. Then he reappeared, but began to ask tricky questions, becoming ruder and more suspicious. Unable to endure another rudeness, the girl showed him out of the door.
Daniil, who began his courtship when Darya was already finishing her sewing technical college (‘I might as well not have studied: no one, Oleg Valeryevich, has ever once asked me for the diploma!’), looked outwardly the complete opposite: a quiet, modest, courteous, good-looking boy from a good family. All these qualities did not prevent the ‘modest boy’ from one day pinning his fianc;e into a corner in order to try, so to speak, to hasten the development of the relationship. After the girl, freeing herself from these embraces without much difficulty—she was physically stronger—inquired what the devil was going on, the slightly embarrassed boy delivered a long tirade: it surprised him, he said, that such questions were put to him. She ought to have carried him in her arms, since she, Darya, had no proper education, no worthwhile profession, no city flat, and—what of it—no striking physical endowments. In her favour she had only a comic accent and her absurd Old-Russian name in her passport. All of that would represent an asset if she were to go to Moscow to play bit parts in a historical TV series or, say, to work as an animator in a restaurant of Russian cuisine. But, since she was not in Moscow . . . The scene took place in the boy’s flat. Darya silently gathered her things and went out, never to return.
‘After Daniil,’ Darya Arkadyevna said, ‘I decided: whatever the Gospel answers, so shall it happen.’
‘The Gospel of the Little Prince?’
‘No, the ordinary one! I took out the New Testament and said to myself: whatever I open to now, that is what shall be. If need be, I will go into a monastery or marry the first man I meet. I crossed myself. I opened the book. It fell to “Romans”, chapter fourteen, verse sixteen: “Let not then your good be evil spoken of.” That was when I thought: but there really is something good in me! Unprepossessing, faint, unnoticeable. But mine. A weak stream of living water, but—will someone come to my water too one day? Even if a single person! In marriage I would not preserve that weak stream. In a monastery I probably would not manage either. But as a craftswoman working from home—perhaps I might. Was I right? God knows! I do not worry about it now, and it is too late to worry . . .’

22

We sat cosily until the very sunset, which in summer, at this time of the month, comes at the beginning of the tenth hour. Sometimes Darya spoke, sometimes I too told her something of my own, sometimes we were both silent. I remember that several times I tried to find out from the mistress of the house her method—but she only made jokes, or got off with general phrases.
‘All the “methods” in the world are nonsense,’ she explained at last, after one especially insistent question of mine. ‘Thousands of books have been written about “methods”—who has become wiser from any of those books? A “method” is like an instruction for how to drink water. And if you have no water, what are you going to drink, the instruction? One must do good, be ashamed of evil, look inside oneself, fear God, and that is the whole method. Does that suit you?’
‘And that is all?’ I did not understand.
‘And that is all,’ she confirmed. ‘Have you tried it?’
‘N-no,’ I had to admit.
‘There you are . . . Try it! At least ten years in a row.’
‘And what will happen?’ I asked naively. ‘Will I begin, like you, to read thoughts?’
‘What is this fixation of yours on reading thoughts! I will hit you on the head with the book again . . . Do you know what is better than a “method”? To seek friends!’
‘Around oneself?’ I did not understand at once.
‘No, not those—and a living friend is a very rare thing to find . . . Come, I will introduce you to my sisters!’
Stepping carefully, we went up to the light-room. Darya, taking me by the hand, as though I were a younger brother, brought me up to the portraits.
‘This is Bernadette,’ she began my acquaintance with the ‘sisters’ in a half-whisper. ‘A girl who was almost illiterate, just like me, and who became famous all over France. This is Christina, of whom we have spoken today already. A poet and a remarkable woman, who quietly, in small steps, walked her difficult path to the very end. This is Nivedita, and of her too we spoke once. Leaving her native England, she went after her Prince to a foreign country, and never once regretted her decision! This is Ella, also known as Elizabeth. After her husband died at the hands of a murderer, she became a mother-abbess, and ended her life a martyr. This is Jacqueline. A master of the cello, at twenty-eight she found herself chained to a wheelchair, but every year until her very death she performed her own labour, invisible to others, bodily and of the heart. This is Nelsa. The world has never heard of her at all; you will not even find a portrait of her anywhere: I met her once in a dream and drew her from memory. And yet she too had her own Prince, indeed one of the Great Princes. There . . .’
‘What astonishes me most of all,’ I responded in the same half-whisper, ‘is that on your “iconostasis” there is not a single male portrait. There is Nivedita, for instance, but no Vivekananda.’
‘God be with you, Oleg Valeryevich!’ she smiled. ‘Is that an iconostasis? That is like the portraits of relatives or close friends hung on a wall. And Vivekananda is not my close friend, after all, though I do admire him . . . I am not the foundress of a new cult, and I am at a loss what to do with these portraits when I am gone. Decide without me . . . Sit down!’
We landed on the carpet. Darya looked at me for a long time—or rather, slightly past me, as though she wanted to make something out.
‘The sun is setting . . .’ she remarked. ‘You know, recently I spoke with . . . a certain being, and . . . well, I was scolded!’
‘For what?’ I did not understand.
‘For you! For arranging you a park of amusements, wasting my strength for nothing. I was justly scolded, and for good reason. But now it makes no difference anyway . . . Choose where we shall go!’
‘Darya Arkadyevna,’ I became worried, ‘considering what you have said, your tiredness and, it seems, your ill-health, it is probably not worth it?’
‘No, no, I have the strength, and it is better precisely today,’ she objected. ‘Choose! Otherwise you will regret it later.’
After thinking for a few seconds, I said:
‘I would still like to find Kira, or at least to see the one who killed her. Is that . . . very unreasonable of me?’
The reader will probably reproach me for the fact that my wish really was rather foolish: what did I want with Kira in particular, when I could look into almost any world? But I am merely a conscientious slow-witted man who is used to finishing everything he has started.
Darya took a deep breath and closed her eyes, withdrawing into herself. So she remained for several minutes.
Opening her eyes at last, she asked me with a sparing gesture to lie on my back. I obeyed.

23

Around me is a desert, but not a sandy one—a salt-flat one. The lifeless grey earth is covered with a network of black cracks.
A weak light pours from the sky which is violet, even lilac.
Cold winds blow. Overtaking me, several tumbleweeds fly past, in which for a moment I fancy smirking devils.
‘Does anyone see me?’ I ask aloud, and raise my eyes to the sky.
Directly above me, at the zenith, an eye opens in the sky, like a human eye.
At once, here and there, as though it had only been waiting for this, the sky begins to open eyes. In some moment it turns out to be studded with them.
From the eyes, tears flow, falling onto the grey earth in the form of large snowflakes. I wander across this snow, hoping for nothing.
Here and there the desert still preserves the skeletons of trees—dead, black, as though burnt. At one of these burnt trees I stop.
On a gnarled branch sits the first living creature I have met, and possibly the only one in this world. It is a spider, or perhaps an insect of a disgusting appearance. It is hard to tell which exactly: a beetle, a caterpillar of fantastic shape, or, say, the larva of an ant-lion.
The insect begins to grow. Now it is the size of a shrew—of a field mouse—of a large toad. Yes, at this moment it most resembles a toad! A fantastic one, however: from the warts on the body of this toad, tiny clawed paws, tentacles, tubular toothy mouths, eyes on stalks keep stretching out.
The beast does not stop growing. Now it is the size of a hedgehog—of a hare—of a large dog (here the dead branch beneath it cracks, and it finally falls to the ground, which does not in the least hinder it from growing further)—of a calf—of a cow—of an elephant. Each time the growth happens in some cheating way: one cannot say that the creature visibly changes, but it is as though horror forces me to close my eyes for a short time, and, opening them, at once to forget that I closed them—and in that instant the creature swells, in order to impudently pretend that it had always been exactly like this.
The loathsome beast grows to the size of an eight-storey building (there are, of course, no buildings here, and probably never were). I, craning my neck, examine its bubbling surface, which swarms with animal and human instruments of murder.
‘Monster bloated, insolent, enormous, hundred-mouthed, and barking,’ I remember the epigraph to Radishchev’s most famous book. Oh, Radishchev probably passed through here, even if only in a dream! How foolish to believe that those lines could have been written about something like Russian autocracy! The old good earthly autocracy here, at the foot of the hundred-mouthed monster, seems to be a plush child’s toy.
Ah, if only Berdichev were here! Alas, Alexei Ilyich has no possibility at all of visiting this world . . .
‘What the devil are you?’ I whisper, belatedly repenting the ‘devil’.
I expect some sort of uterine voice, but the Beast chooses another method of communication. From its carcass a human head flies out swiftly, attached to a shaggy serpent-like neck. The head hovers directly at the level of my face. It seems to be a man’s head, judging by the Adam’s apple and the elegant black moustache—but its lips are touched with glossy lipstick, its eyes are outlined, and on the eyelids there are lilac shadows. The head licks its lips before saying:
‘Monsieur is not acquainted with me? I am the Jabberwock.’
The name is pronounced with a deep growl: for a second or two the man turns into a wolf, with gills stirring on either side of it. It is not an ordinary wolf but a gigantic man-eating wolf, with bared teeth and eyes suffused with frenzy.
‘Are you, pardon me, here to fight, or just to wag your tongue?’ the head asks me, almost at once returning to its ordinary human form. From its mouth a long tongue, like a chameleon’s, extends and almost touches mine. I recoil in disgust.
‘Did you kill Kira?’ I ask quietly but firmly, looking the monster in the eyes.
The head sways left and right on the stalk of its neck.
‘It is always people who kill!’ it informs me sententiously. ‘I only sow seeds in your minds, and it's you humans who make them sprout. Look!’
Turning the head into a gigantic palm, the Beast plunges it inside itself and, scooping from its breast, flings into the air a great mass of black metal balls, which at once scatter across the whole desert with a whistle and the speed of bullets. The balls roll into the cracks in the earth, and from these cracks immediately begin to grow, towards the sky, almost reaching it, flowers on narrow rigid stems, prickly as dry burdock. The heavenly eyes blink and close.
‘I want to know where she is now,’ I continue the conversation.
Each of the fingers of the gigantic palm turns into a caricature of a face, somewhat resembling the face of a seahorse with an elongated mouth. These five mouths fly up to my head and, surrounding it on all sides, trumpet at me in different voices:
‘Nonsense, nonsense! Who told you that Kira was killed at all? The Angel of Death? Oh, by all means, trust him! Do you think he exists anywhere except in your own fantasy, like myself? Your “mentor” is not a mystic but an ordinary sorceress, like the first one you saw. But all her skill consists only in projecting coloured moving pictures onto the inner side of your skull. Even this world is not self-sufficient! She took it from some Latvian fairy tale, an animated version of which she saw in childhood. I am a product of imagination, and of someone else's at that. What sort of answers do you expect from me? Are you in your right mind?’
‘I want to know where Kira is now!’ I repeat aloud.
The long neck, like a boa constrictor, coils around me in a spiral. The head turns into the head of a gigantic serpent, which now hangs directly over me.
‘I will swallow you, and you will forget everything, little brave knight,’ a mouth that has crawled out from the side of the neck whispers to me. ‘You will have no need to know that Kira has already been reincar—’
The maw approaches.
And suddenly everything goes out as swiftly as a lamp unplugged from the socket. I open my eyes in my accustomed world, in the ‘chamber’ on the fuzzy carpet.

24

For a couple of minutes I simply lay on my back, coming round from that nightmare.
Darya was silent, and at last I became worried about her. I sat up on my knees.
My guide sat with her eyes closed, barely moving the fingers of one hand over the nap of the carpet. The weak light of the evening glow did not allow me to make out her face.
‘Darya Arkadyevna!’ I called cautiously. ‘Is everything well with you?’
‘Everything is wonderful with me . . .’  The tone of her voice was in evident contradiction to the words.
Without ceremony, Darya crawled on all fours straight to the wall; leaned her back against it. Drew her knees up to her belly. Found the strength to smile at me.
‘Oh, I am to blame again!’ I was ashamed. ‘Each time I forget how unsafe this is for you. When will this ever enter my bad, uncouth head!’
‘No, it is nothing . . . But at least he let something slip—’
‘—about the fact that Kira has already been reincarnated,’ I finished for her. ‘And was that knowledge worth such adventures? Do you have any kind of medicine in the house?’
‘I do not need medicines! But I will be grateful to you, Oleg Valeryevich, if you go downstairs and make me a whole thermos of tea, half-and-half with milk. There was still milk left in the fridge . . .’
And so I did, which took me about ten long minutes. I returned to the light-room with the full thermos.
‘Thank you!’ Darya thanked me in an ordinary, living voice, taking the thermos from my hands. ‘This will probably be enough for me until the very morning.’
Briskly she moved to the centre of the room and sat down on her knees, facing the already black eastern sky through the gap of the little window.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked with apprehension, sitting down beside her.
‘To pray,’ the hostess explained laconically. ‘You see: the Jabberwock has been raging again! Someone has to stand against him and pray.’
‘Can it be that no one on the whole planet is praying now?’
‘I cannot answer for the whole planet!’ she objected. 'I am responsible only for this small patch of earth. On this patch, indeed, no one is praying now.’
‘And . . . for long?’
‘Until the very morning, I told you! Or until I fall asleep.’
‘Darya Arkadyevna,’ I mumbled imploringly, ‘tomorrow is such a difficult day, considering the founding assembly of the group appointed for midday . . . You would be better to get some sleep . . .’
‘Nothing can be more important than a lone war against the Jabberwock!’ I was answered in a whisper. ‘Nothing.’
‘Very well, let it be,’ I gave in. ‘And . . . what am I to do?’
‘You?’ She thought for a few seconds. ‘You may join me.’
‘To be honest, I am not used to such all-night vigils . . .’ Barely had I said it than I was ashamed of my weakness. ‘Incidentally, the “all-night vigil” in an ordinary church no longer lasts the whole night—only an hour or two,’ crossed my mind. ‘And here everything is done in perfect earnest . . .’
‘There, now you are ashamed, and for nothing,’ she commented calmly. ‘You really are not used to them: you have a different war and a different field of battle.’
‘Besides, I would be useful to you right now about as much as a small child is to a soldier,’ I agreed at once.
‘Even a child sometimes can be useful to a soldier . . . But go home, Oleg Valeryevich! Sleep well, and be on time tomorrow. We shall “build a boat”, as Nikolai Rubtsov foretold.’
‘What boat? Ah, yes, the boat . . . You are honestly not angry with me?’
‘Honestly!’ With a light, airy movement she crossed me and turned to me in profile.
Trying not to make a noise, I went down to the ground floor, carefully closed the door and the gate behind me.
The window of the chamber, when I looked at it one last time before getting into the car, was lit with a weak light: Darya Arkadyevna must have lit a candle.
‘I did not ask her what prayer she would pray, what weapon she would use in her lone war,’ I thought with belated repentance. ‘Though does it matter? Probably anything will do . . . While this little window is lit, we have hope. And when there is no one left to light the candle, what shall we do? Pray, probably . . . Shall we? It would seem such a simple thing—to pray—and we do not do it. Why? We do not know how. It is even funny: how can one not know how to pray? It’s like not knowing how to eat, drink, breathe. But we precisely do not know how, we are not accustomed . . . Why is it you are always on about sad things? Better take her to a doctor tomorrow after the assembly, all right?’

25

Arriving home—the eleventh hour of the evening was drawing to a close!—I switched on my mobile phone and almost at once received four short messages, all from Semyon Grigoryevich Kachinsky. In them the old man repented, grieved, and asked me to ring him back.
And so I did. I had barely managed to apologise for the late call when a counter-flow of apologies and regrets poured over me.
The matter was this. At approximately the same time as I was sufficiently far from this world and its problems, a certain ‘diocesan functionary’, who remained unnamed, got through to Kachinsky and peremptorily demanded that he give the real date and time of the founding assembly of the religious group ‘The Oasis’. Semyon Grigoryevich did not submit at once—and did not surrender even after being pressured with threats not merely to deprive him of his orders (he was a deacon, ‘numbered among those out of staff’) but to declare his entire service in the Russian Orthodox Church ‘as never having happened’ and even to forbid, after his death, that his name be commemorated in prayers for the dead within the whole eparchy. (Who could carry out such threats at all, and in what manner? Had he really been threatened with precisely these things, or had the elderly man misheard his interlocutor and made up what he did not hear? All these questions have remained unanswered to this day.) So: he did not exactly surrender—but all the same he wavered and offered the unnamed interlocutor my phone number. My phone number, however, the diocesan functionary already had—and then, burning with shame, Kachinsky gave him Avrely’s phone number . . .
At this point I swore ornately. Afterwards I had to spend another three or four minutes comforting Semyon Grigoryevich, assuring him that nothing irreparable had happened.
I barely got free of him and, disregarding all norms of propriety, began ringing Avrely Vitoldovich, whom I reached in the end on the fourth attempt.
Yes, as though nothing had happened, the lover of the spirit of India informed me (some cheerful music was playing in the background), he had indeed recently given the Orthodox friends the place, the time, and the date of the assembly. And what was wrong with that? People ought to be brothers to one another; they ought, all over the world, to extend their hands to one another with a joyful smile! Surely I did not imagine that he had done something wrong? He, Avrely, personally, was ready to argue with me . . .
I wound up this useless conversation as quickly as I could. Having put down the receiver, I wanted to utter a blue streak of obscenity—but there was a risk of waking the neighbours.
‘Tomorrow, all tomorrow! Leave all troubles, if they come, for the new day, and with new strength we will fight them!’
Going to bed, I sent Carey a short note by email with the request that, if it did not trouble her too much, she join tomorrow’s event—of course not as one of the founders of the religious group but as my trainee, exclusively to have the opportunity to observe how the meetings of a public association proceed and how the minutes of such meetings are written.

Part Five



1

On the night between Sunday and Monday, just before waking, I dreamed two strange dreams, one after the other, unconnected with one another. I will give the first.

In one of the southern seas not far from Russia, a warship—the beauty and pride of the Russian fleet—is wrecked.
(What ship this was I could not make out: I did not see the ship itself. It could hardly have been the cruiser Varyag or the submarine Kursk: neither the Yellow Sea nor, still less, the Barents Sea can be called southern.
Having asked myself this question afterwards, I established that, perhaps more than any other, the Saint Eustace Placidus fits the role of the ship from my dream—a sailing ship of the line, sunk in 1770 at the Battle of Chesma off the coast of Turkey. I will not insist on precisely this identification: in dreams things often have no names, and let the question of how the objects of our dreams correspond to reality be answered by mystics and visionaries, not by legal workers.)
The last honours were paid to the ship, but half a dozen sailors found no rest. Whether a stupid mistake of a military bureaucrat or a simple accident was the cause, the funeral prayers were not read over them.
Darya Arkadyevna descends to the depths and brings all six out onto a certain peninsula. Why did she need to descend into the water, if the matter concerned the dead, and why could the prayer not be read on the shore? I asked myself this question while still in the dream, and in the dream itself I dismissed it as unimportant.
Gathering the sailors around her, she puts a finger to her lips and asks them never to tell anyone of what has happened.

2

I had barely managed to make sense of the first dream—and had I even managed to? it remains a riddle to me to this day—when the second followed it.

Socrates is being tried. The session is being held not in Athens but in one of the courts of our city, most likely in the Arbitration Court. The narrow, cramped halls of the Arbitration Court of our region, no bigger than a school classroom, are well known to me from my work. The crying incongruity of the Arbitration Court hearing the case of Socrates, the charge against whom is criminal, strikes me at once and gives me no peace throughout the dream.
Socrates is exactly as we know him: short, almost bald, thickset, bearded, dressed in a greyish toga, shod in sandals. The incongruity of this toga and these sandals, like Socrates himself, in the hall of a Russian provincial court is also completely obvious, but no one pays the slightest attention to the incongruity.
In the seats for the public are the young Plato and several other pupils of Socrates whose names I do not know. Plato is touchingly defenceless in his anxiety.
I am present at the session in the capacity of defence counsel—but my help, alas, is not required: Socrates refuses a representative and conducts his own defence. In general, the court is unlike an ordinary one: a woman judge with an indifferent face declares that the norms of Russian legislation are not applicable to a dead philosopher (well, here at least is a glimmer of common sense! I rejoice), and therefore he will be tried under the laws of the Athenian polis (and here common sense abandons us, but I do not even have time to smile at this). Moreover, since the trial has already taken place previously, only the formal confirmation of the verdict is required. Nevertheless, the accused is given the opportunity to say a last word.
Socrates rises and delivers a speech—his astonishing speech, full of dignity, that will enter into the ages. He ends it—in full accordance with Plato's text—with the words:
‘The hour of departure has arrived: for me, to die; for you, to live, and which of us goes to the better thing, no one knows except God.'
These words, probably historically accurate, I am hearing for the first time. Until the morning of Monday I had not read the Apology and could not have known them. Or had I after all known them from university lectures on philosophy and managed thoroughly to forget them? I have no answer. Does it even matter? I have grown up in the last two weeks, and I now no longer seek miracles or unexplained occurrences, no longer expect them, do not even consider them too significant.
The judge goes out into the retiring room and, returning almost at once, pronounces the verdict. Socrates is taken into custody right in the courtroom. He manages to look at me with a long, expressive look and to say, as though in consolation to me:
‘What must happen does not end.’

3

Having woken, I wrote both dreams down in a notebook, otherwise I would probably have forgotten them. And so it turned out that the morning of Monday, preparing myself a simple breakfast, I spent in thoughts of Socrates. Not the most expected topic for reflection in my profession, but what does a man not think about on holiday!
The trial of Socrates took place in full accordance with the legal norms of his time. No trial of Alexander Mikhailovich Azurov, whom I did not personally know, but who, had he remained alive, would now probably be no more than sixty, ever took place. Nevertheless, in public opinion—in the opinion of the pupils and the administration of the Orthodox Girls’ Gymnasium—he turned out to be condemned for the same thing as the ancient Greek philosopher, as his pupil correctly observed.
Azurov—or should I, as a mark of respect to Darya Arkadyevna, call him the Prince?—‘corrupted the youth’ by putting before the future matushkas questions about their attitude to the challenges of modernity, expecting from them a sincere and personal answer to those questions. Is one really to consider that a crime, or even a misdemeanour? Why, on the contrary, not valour? (Both questions I have asked were not rhetorical: I really did not know the answers, and even now I do not know them. Pedagogy is not my profession, and I am afraid to intrude into a science unknown to me with my ignorant opinion.) However, the majority of the girls in the eleventh year, now women in their fourth decade, considered him guilty, and even guilty of something that in Athens was punished by death.
The majority, as I recently understood in the case of Kira, can also be mistaken. The problem is, it is precisely the majority that judges us—both Kira, and Socrates, and Darya’s teacher.
Let the reader not expect from me that at this point I will agree with the card-carrying fighters against the regime, forever wailing: they say, in Russia ‘the people are not the right ones’. What ‘right’ ones do they want, then? Consider: in the country of ideal direct democracy, the people also turned out to be ‘not the right ones’. It is not that ‘the people are not the right ones’—Man is weak, both in solitude and in a crowd. (Frightening, indeed!) Perhaps in solitude he is even stronger: he retains more opportunities for saving reflection, and for sorting things out.
Was my morning dream flattering me, making me a defence counsel and not a prosecutor? Whence my certainty that I, had I found myself in the Athenian court, would not have cast precisely the black pebble against Socrates? The present me would probably not have done so. What about the me of a month ago?
But at the same time it was precisely the crying injustice of the trial of Socrates that made Plato, and in a similar way the tribunal over Azurov made of Darya the one she is now—for otherwise she would have been afraid to approach her already former schoolteacher and to address him with a bold request unlike anything in the world. So it was not all for nothing? Yes, Alexander Mikhailovich sacrificed his good name for that ‘not for nothing’, but the sacrifice, it seems, justified itself? People like Darya Arkadyevna take steps in unexplored regions of the spirit, and for that, probably, nothing is too much to give? Though it is easy to dispose of another’s good name and another’s life; one’s own is much harder . . .
A new thought set the course of my reflections down another channel. The Prince, unlike Socrates, was not charged fourteen years ago with ‘non-reverence of the existing gods’. (Was he not? I do not know for certain, for I have not read that collective complaint, or whatever it was called—ah yes, the ‘minutes of the class meeting’!) But what the future matushkas had not managed to accomplish was now being successfully completed by the expansive, wordy letters of former priests, whom Azurov, with his ‘anti-Church fairy tale’, troubled even from the grave. Dear and respected colleagues and co-religionists, why, The Little Prince itself, if one is guided by your logic, is an anti-Church fairy tale! And Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird? And Andersen’s Snow Queen? And what will you say about Fahrenheit 451? The book is not a fairy tale, but in its character it is profoundly un-Orthodox. Consider for yourselves: none of the heroes visits a church, none approaches communion, and moreover the protagonist, wishing to convince Professor Faber to take his side, tears one page after another out of the Bible. And the reading of the Gospel in Bradbury’s novel is interrupted by an advertisement for toothpaste. What a disgrace! What a blasphemy!
‘You are judging all of Orthodoxy by two or three fools,’ another thought came into my head. ‘Of course I am wrong,’ yet another one caught up with it. ‘The trouble is only that fools are empty, and, being empty, they easily float to the surface: they receive church ranks and authority in the eyes of their contemporaries, even if somewhat inflated authority. And people who are attentive, concentrated, self-deepening, on the contrary, often “sink to the bottom”: they are exiled by their ecclesiastical authorities to distant parishes, they withdraw into unknown monasteries, they live out their quiet, unnoticed, prayerful lives. So it has always been and, apparently, so it will always be. But why are you, my precious co-religionists (are you still my co-religionists?), silent about this trouble?’

4

My interesting reflections were interrupted by a ring at the door. Who the hell is this now, at ten in the morning?
On the threshold stood Karolina—in the same outfit in which I had taken her for a boy. How long ago that was, it seems! And yet only eight days ago.
I opened the door. The girl came into the hall, looking at me guiltily.
‘Am I inopportune?’ she asked very much like a grown-up. ‘Am I distracting you?’
‘Always glad to see you . . .’
‘You are using vy with me again?’
‘It just comes out that way . . . Coffee?’ I managed.
‘Thank you, I will not refuse, only I have not yet repaid you the money for that coffee. And for the ice cream . . .’
‘I have already forgotten about “that coffee”.’
‘I was simply trying myself out as a girl, or rather a “girlie”, checking whether I was capable of “taking a man” for at least a cup of coffee,’ Carey continued to explain. ‘So you understood that? And you do not even seem angry? As for me, I am terribly furious at myself: how essentially disgusting that is, how vile, my God . . . I managed it once—thank you: I have eaten my fill for a lifetime . . .’
We went through into the kitchen, where I set about making coffee, standing at the stove. Carey also stood.
‘You do not even ask why I came so early, and straight to you, and not to the assembly!’ she addressed me with a half-reproach.
‘You quarrelled with your parents?’ I supposed.
‘No, I did not quarrel! They are delighted to get me off their hands! Whatever the child does, as long as she does not make a nuisance of herself! You are a useless psychologist.’
‘Useless, and I do not even pretend otherwise,’ I agreed readily. ‘Then, probably, because you are afraid of not finding the plot, and I can anyway pick you up in the car, since I am going myself?’
‘No, and there too you have missed . . . I am frightened!’
‘Frightened?’ (‘Astonishing,’ I thought, ‘reflecting on Socrates, I arrived at the very same word not long ago.’)
‘Yes! Thank you: is this freshly brewed? A rare kind of swill, actually, only do not take offence. Never mind, a couple of years will pass and I will come to love fresh-brewed. And then I will begin to eat onions, olives, count calories, finally shift from trainers to shoes—and that is that, no way back . . . I am frightened, first, by the speed with which everything in me is changing. I now live a week in a day—or a month. These are ordinary age-related changes, and not some “spiritual path”: one should not lie to oneself. That is how it must be with everyone. It was that way with you too, was it not, Uncle Oleg?’
‘Yes, only at about eighteen,’ I admitted. ‘Boys mature more slowly.’
‘I understand . . . I understand—and I envy you! Another two years certainly would not have hurt. I go to sleep a child—I wake up a young woman, and the further it goes, the more so. Is it not very shameless on my part to tell such things?’
‘I will stop you if it becomes “quite shameless”, do not worry,’ the author of these notes smiled. Carey, nodding, continued:
‘I am beginning to understand the meaning of men’s looks, words, compliments. Even yours . . .’
‘Oh Lord! You mean yesterday’s dress?’ I guessed. The girl nodded again, this time blushing deeply. I assume that I too blushed at that moment.
‘But do not think: I am not at all angry with you,’ she mumbled in confusion. ‘Or rather, yesterday I was close to being angry. And today it’s even pleasant to me . . . Look what a great distance has been covered—and in only one day! By the way, I’ve managed here to solve the mystery of how women become lesbians. Lesbians are women who have mentally got stuck in the one single day of their sixteen years. They felt a man’s gaze on them for the first time, said to themselves, “Ugh!”—and remain in that ‘Ugh!” their whole lives. Will you say I am wrong?’
‘You are growing up by the hour, Carey,’ I remarked.
‘Are you laughing again?’ the girl clarified with suspicion.
‘No, I am speaking sincerely. And have I ever laughed at you?’
‘Never!’ she admitted. ‘You are wonderful, it is I who am oversensitive. Yesterday I added the word “oversensitive” to my vocabulary! There, boasting about such a trifle: and where is the grown-upness in that?’
‘Boasting, alas, is not a sign of childhood alone . . . “Frightened, first, by the speed with which everything in me is changing,” you say,’ I remembered the beginning of the conversation. ‘And what is the second reason?’
‘My mind is jumping about: simply a disgrace . . . And the second is a premonition!’
‘A premonition?’
‘Yes, a premonition! I am afraid that today something will happen for which I am not quite ready—and it is not even about me. Also, I had completely idiotic dreams today . . .’
‘And I too,’ escaped me suddenly.
‘And you too?!’ The girl was so astonished by this trivial fact that she stared at me with all her eyes and, it seemed, forgot how to breathe. ‘Does it happen that two different people have important dreams on the same day? What was yours about?’
‘About the Saint Eustace Placidus, and about Socrates.’
‘No, mine was not about Socrates . . .’
Carey suddenly flung herself on my neck. There was, I think, nothing romantic in her embrace: I felt how her heart was pounding with agitation before the unclear premonition.
I carefully patted the girl on the shoulder, gently freed myself from her arms. Then I sat her down at the table and sat down opposite her.
‘Do you understand that I am simply frightened?’ she insistently asked me. ‘That I am doing this now . . . not for another reason?’
‘Not only do I understand—I see it! I too am frightened . . .’
‘There, there,’ she smiled at me through the tears that had managed to gather in her eyes. ‘It’s hard to believe that you are really frightened . . .’
‘My heart, at least, is not at rest,’ I had to admit. ‘Though why shouldn’t it be? I have done far more difficult things in my practice than keeping the minutes of the founding assembly of a religious group.’
‘There is something of the tin soldier about you,’ Carey remarked pensively, watching me, without any connection to what had gone before.
‘The world around him is burning, and he stands on one leg and does not melt?’ I guessed.
‘Precisely! In general, Kristina can be understood . . .’ the girl dropped a mysterious phrase. And asked: ‘Read me from The Little Prince's Gospel, please! I want to get myself into a slightly less dishevelled state, and for that I need something manly. Only do not tell me all sorts of vulgarities about conducting religious propaganda on a minor! Look at me at least a little as a junior comrade, and not as a source of danger! What a rude person I am, however, what an intolerant one, and why should that be? Are you very displeased by my rudeness?’
‘Your rudeness compared with mine at the same age is simply a model of delicacy, believe me . . . Will the seventh chapter do?’ I clarified.
‘Thank you, even if it is not true!’ the girl thanked me. ‘Any will do.’

5

The Chapter on Journeys to Other Planets

1. Before the Prince reached the Earth, he had managed to visit the planet of the King, of the Ambitious Man, of the Drunkard, of the Businessman, of the Lamplighter, and of the Geographer.
2. Are these real planets? No, only asteroids—states of the soul.
3. Most people are Dealers or Ambitious Men. Their day passes in petty cares, and their life is decorated with paltry joys.
4. Worse than them are only the Drunkards, who drink in order to forget the horror of a meaningless existence, intoxicating themselves with women, games, or dope.
5. Having developed his mind, the Dealer becomes a Geographer. The Geographer has names for all things and is capable of passing for an expert among clever fellows like himself. But in nothing significant does the Geographer surpass the Dealer.
6. The Dealer at least sometimes does business. The Scholar loves words more than any deeds. With words he shamelessly betrays reality, creating an ephemeral paradise of thought. Fragile is this paradise, and paltry the thought torn away from life.
7.  The Lamplighter is a head above the Drunkard, the Dealer, and the Scholar.
8. The Lamplighter’s labour is outwardly useless, for no one needs a lamp on a lonely stone fragment. But the same may be said of any earthly labour.
9. And yet in the life of the Lamplighter there is service. Only with service does the greatness of the soul begin. Do not disdain the Lamplighter’s labour, if you wish in the future to become a Prince!
10. And do you know for certain that the Lamplighter’s labour is useless? Will not your own little lamp also be of use to someone? Three hundred and sixty-four times a year light it without any visible use, and on the three hundred and sixty-fifth you will hear ‘Good evening!’ from a lonely traveller. ‘Good evening! How glad I am that you did not forget to light your lamp!’
11. The Lamplighter is already close to becoming a Fox one day, and the Fox is only a step from the transformation into His Highness.
12. By a leap one passes from asteroid to asteroid.
13. It is easy to fall down, but hard to walk up! So Socrates answered the harlot, and let us not forget the words of Socrates when we converse with the harlots of modernity. Their number has multiplied too greatly, and few will escape a meeting with them.
14. Such are the parts of the path, each having its own name. But walk along the path without stopping, and do not think too much about what to call yourself. Think least of all about names for others! Otherwise you will fall back onto that asteroid on which the Geographers live.
15. Walk along the path—and one day you will acquire the ability to pass from world to world.
16. You will see both the joyful regions of posthumous rest and the bitter dwelling-places for bad minds. What will you not see when you spread your wings!
17. But do not hurry on your path, do not leap over the steps, do not wish for wings before your time! Otherwise you will turn out to be an ordinary Ambitious Man and will sit your whole life away on the asteroid of ambition.
18. To the few who have walked the path almost to its very end, the Great Cosmos opens.
19. These Giants truly travel from planet to planet, and so the fairy tale is justified.
20. Do not hurry to be a Giant! You are only a Little Prince for now. A Little Prince also has his own affairs, his own realms of care, his own Rose, who must be sheltered from the night cold, his own Little Sheep, his own Foxes. They look ridiculous to the Cosmic Fliers, but those Fliers remember their own former Little Sheep with a smile, as we remember childhood.

6

‘All real books say the same thing,’ Karolina remarked when I had finished reading. ‘In different words, but always the same thing! Why do they study so few real books at school?’
‘You are laying it on thick, Carey!’ I objected. ‘Is, for instance, War and Peace not a real book?’
‘War and Peace? A real one. Only I would cut it by a factor of eight!’ the girl responded with the amusing directness of youth. ‘And why did we read Chekhov’s “The Chameleon” in literature lessons, tell me, please?’
‘Probably to get an idea of Chekhov’s inimitable humour?’ I supposed.
‘You can get an idea of humour from humorous publics!’ she cut me off. ‘And the young, including me, are tragically, tragically short of seriousness as it is! Everyone does nothing but flirt with us, look into our mouths, and entertain us, working as unpaid clowns! Not a life, but a f***ing circus with horses! Forgive my language . . .’
‘The setting for battle has been successfully made,’ I remarked pacifically. ‘In general, you sound like a mother superior. Or no, not like that: like a nuclear mixture of a sixteen-year-old girl and an Old Believer abbess.’
‘Do you not like it?’ she glanced at me from under her brows. ‘By the way, the teacher of your mentor—the very one who wrote the Gospel—surely he did not read her “The Chameleon”? And not The Summer of the Lord, the emigrant tedium of a failed Nazi?’
‘I like it very much, and I think you are a rarity for your generation.’ (The girl turned pink.) ‘No, not “The Chameleon”, and not The Summer of the Lord, that is true . . . Oh, damn it!’ I suddenly remembered. ‘The call from the eparchy! And we are chatting about Russian literature . . .’
In compressed words I told her about yesterday’s telephone conversation with Kachinsky. Carey became all ears.
‘Ring all the participants in the association!’ she ordered when I had finished, not wasting time on courtesies. ‘Ring, move the assembly to the evening! Can I help you with anything? Very well—I am silent, I won't get in the way!’
Yes, there was a sound grain in her suggestion . . .
I began dialling the numbers of the ‘community members’—but reached no one except Avrely, that good-natured preacher of love instead of war and of the image of humanity as one friendly family. Avrely informed me that he was already on his way—he had set off early, wishing to enjoy the summer day—and would of course not turn back halfway. To be honest, it was a little inconvenient for him to hold the phone in one hand and the handlebar of the scooter in the other. No, he was not hinting at anything, for it is always pleasant to talk with a good man. Was the weather not lovely today?
‘We must go too!’ I decided, agreeing that the weather really was lovely, wishing him caution on the road, and ending the call. ‘We will arrive half an hour before the start—and perhaps we will be able to think of something on the spot.’
Carey nodded, silent, concentrated, warlike.
‘I like this life!’ she let slip when we were getting into my old Daewoo Nexia. ‘Every day a battle!’
‘The work of a lawyer is, as a rule, far more prosaic,’ I explained. ‘I would myself have preferred fewer agitations . . . But you astonish me! In you, in this immeasurable raincoat, there is something of Tokugawa Ieyasu.'
‘Sorry, whom?’ she did not understand.
‘There was, in the sixteenth century, a great samurai and military commander by that name.’
‘Oh, I want to be a samurai!’ the girl exclaimed, more in jest. ‘I will learn to wield a long sword! Silly, is it not? Are you laughing at me? I am laughing at myself—and sometimes I want to be one so much! How accurately the author of the Gospel observed that the Prince first appears with a smallsword! By the way, have you read Vladislav Krapivin’s The Boy with the Rapier?’

7

Darya Arkadyevna was sitting on one of the two benches under the big juniper, leaning on a stick—an ordinary long stick of the kind one can pick up in a forest. I saw with a shudder that her face was not merely pale but even somehow earthy.
‘Well, Oleg Valeryevich, do I look quite bad?’ she said with a weak smile, catching sight of us with Karolina.
‘Bad!’ I admitted, and sat down on the other bench, set at an angle to the first. ‘Shall I go to the chemist’s?’
‘No need, dear, thank you.’
‘Give me a promise that right after the assembly you will not resist when I take you to the doctor. Deal?’
‘We will see about that,’ Darya evaded the answer.
‘Not “we will see”, but promise me, please! Perhaps to the devil with this assembly? All the more so since . . .’
‘No, no, it is impossible!’ the hostess became worried. ‘It is awkward: people have been invited. We will go to the doctor, we will certainly go . . . My dear, will you not plait my braid for me?' she addressed Carey with familiarity. ‘Look, I have got quite dishevelled . . .’
Carey, sitting down beside her on the bench, obediently began to plait her braid, while I was telling for the second time my conversation with Kachinsky and offering arguments in favour of the fact that the founding assembly of the group ought to be postponed to a later time, or to another date, or held entirely by correspondence. Darya listened to me with her eyes closed, nodding from time to time.
‘It is too late, my good one,’ she summed up. ‘Too late to put it off. Nothing terrible will happen, and what will be, will be. What must happen does not end,’ she pronounced the phrase of Socrates, from which I got goosebumps.
‘You might have been in my dream today!’ escaped me.
‘I was not! I had no time . . . Look, people are already arriving.’
And indeed: I had only just managed to smile at the combination of the address to me by name and patronymic and by ty—a very touching one—when the gate banged. Avrely was already coming towards us, wheeling his electric scooter along the garden path beside him. He had indeed done the whole considerable journey on the scooter! ‘All you lack is a lavender latte in your left hand,’ I could not help thinking, but on my face, of course, I displayed complete friendliness.

8

Avrely was eager to tell me some new idea about how to make all people on earth happy. I did not allow this to happen and set him to a more pragmatic occupation: carrying chairs for the assembly.
Together with the young man we carried out of the house and placed next to the outdoor benches, in a rough circle, two wicker armchairs and a stool from the kitchen, and also a chair from the workroom. There was no other seating furniture in the house. The benches, however, were long enough: two easily fitted on each, and, at some squeeze, three could sit. Avrely Vitoldovich announced that he did not require any chair: he would sit on the grass in the Eastern manner, ‘at the feet of the teacher’. I only shrugged. A natural proposal, even friendly, with care for others—so why did it subtly irritate me? Ah, it is hard to cultivate patience towards one’s neighbours . . .
Again and again the gate banged, and again I went to greet those who had gathered. I shook the hand of Kachinsky—an elderly, stooped little fellow of short stature, with a neat little beard and innocent blue eyes. Semyon Grigoryevich again repented aloud of his faint-heartedness and, casting a glance in the direction of Avrely, asked in a half-whisper:
‘This one . . . gave them both the place and the time, of course?’
I, nodding, hastened to answer a question with a question in the same half-whisper:
‘Semyon Grigoryevich, you are not expecting a real provocation, are you? In the last resort one can call the police . . .’
‘Ah, the police, the police... The police, of course, can always be called, but what a scandal! What a lack of propriety . . .’
‘It seems we have lost propriety forever, when we left the bosom of the mother church,’ I sighed, imitating his tone. ‘There is no time for propriety now.’
‘You think we really have lost it forever?’ he squinted. ‘By the way, where did you study theology?’
‘I never studied it anywhere, and in church matters I am a complete ignoramus!’ I honestly confessed. ‘It is not my profession.’
‘And that is for the best, Oleg Valeryevich, for the best!’ Kachinsky encouraged me. ‘It is precisely Noah, an amateur, who built the ark, and we professionals build only Titanics.’
‘Do you really consider the Orthodox Church a hopeless Titanic?’ I asked directly.
‘A complicated question, not for a conversation of the moment . . . Look how neatly you have organised everything!’
‘Touch wood, Semyon Grigoryevich, my dear!’ I asked in jest.
I expected that the deacon, numbered out of staff, would object to me with the standard Orthodox clich; about the pagan origin of all domestic superstitions, but Kachinsky, taking a couple of steps aside, willingly knocked on the nearest apple tree and even spat over his left shoulder.

 
9

Probably a minute remained until midday when the gate banged for the next time.
Towards the circle of those gathered—well, this was to be expected, though I had hoped to the last that it would be avoided!—so, towards the circle of those gathered Olga Nikolaevna was approaching, carrying her head proudly. She wore the same attire as on the previous Saturday: black skirt, yellow belt, dark-grey buttoned-up blouse. There was something in her appearance of the boyaryna Morozova, with a correction for modernity, of course.
With pain in my heart I thought once more that Darya Arkadyevna—she, for the occasion, had put on the light-grey working blouse and the orange skirt with decorative check patches in which I had seen her for the first time—against the background of her cousin looked like a mongrel beside a pedigree prize dog, like a peasant horse beside an Arab stallion. All of this, of course, was purely external, important only to those who did not penetrate beyond the shell of things. But how many are capable of penetrating beyond that shell?
Olga was accompanied by an unsmiling strapping youth of about twenty in a black shirt: a seminarian, or perhaps simply a zealous parishioner.
Not three paces from the assembly, Olga and her companion stopped.
‘I have come to visit you, Darya,’ Olga Nikolaevna announced loudly and not in a family way. ‘Or will you drive me out, as before?’
‘God be with you, Olya,’ Darya Arkadyevna responded in a quiet, tired voice. ‘You know that I promised not to drive you out any more.’
‘I can still, though with difficulty, understand Olga Nikolaevna’s presence at the assembly,’ I intervened. ‘But how is one to explain the presence of completely outside people whom we do not even know?’
‘Leave them,’ Darya asked me. ‘Olga apparently needs a bodyguard. Evidently she is afraid that her own sister will offend her . . . Sit down! There are still places.’
Places indeed existed: the two wicker armchairs from the kitchen, which no one had taken, ceding them to others as the most comfortable: Dina, for instance, sat on a plain wooden chair, and Yulia on a stool. With indignation I (and, probably, not only I) watched as Olga and her ‘bodyguard’ sat down in these armchairs without a pang of conscience, as though they were at our assembly the guests of honour, the long-awaited ones, and what of it—the chief protagonists.

10

The assembly had to be begun in spite of everything.
The author of these notes, having cleared his throat, rose from his bench, which he had occupied together with Semyon Grigoryevich, and announced the purpose of the assembly and the items on the agenda.
‘The name of the group as well!’ the smiling Avrely added, whose good-natured calm nothing had clouded. ‘I will vote for “Dorothea’s Garden”.’
‘Yes, the name of the group,’ I agreed with him, feeling that I was not fully in command of my voice. This was not how I had imagined it, not at all! ‘For the role of chairman of the assembly I propose myself, and for the role of secretary, my . . . my assistant.’ (‘But Carey is a minor!’ flashed through my mind. ‘Though, it seems, the secretary of an assembly need not necessarily be elected from among the members of the association: the Civil Code does not require it as a matter of course.’ Karolina, as though she had been waiting for precisely this, nodded to me and was already unfolding a folder on her knees, preparing to write the minutes. Looking at her confident, impenetrable, grown-up face, I calmed down a little.) ‘I will ask you to vote on the proposal! One, two, three . . . unanimously!’
Neither Olga nor her companion, of course, voted. In the direction of Olga, who had sat down, as ill luck would have it, directly opposite our bench with Kachinsky, I was afraid even to glance once more. The woman was drilling me with her gaze as it was.
‘Well, then,’ I continued neither steadily nor briskly, ‘we move to the first item on the agenda. We have no tribune or pulpit here, so I will ask speakers to stand. For single remarks, standing is not obligatory. Does anyone have anything to say on the substance of the question?’
Barely had I landed on the bench than Olga rose from her place and, as though that were not enough for her, stood beside her armchair, leaning on it with her right hand.
‘Good people, forgive me!’ she began in a loud, distinct, well-trained, though slightly dull voice. ‘Forgive me for the fact that you have been deceived!’
At this point she unhurriedly bowed to the assembly with a deep, exaggerated bow from the waist. What vulgar theatre was unfolding before our eyes?! Or even a ‘f***ing circus’, to use Carey’s expression from the morning . . .
One had to listen: it was we ourselves who had invited the ‘boyaryna Morozova’, or rather, had forgotten to remind her where the exit was. Darya Arkadyevna was evidently exercising herself in patience, and what was left for us to do? Only to be patient after her.
‘I do not know what you want to create here and in what rank to exalt my little sister,’ Olga was meanwhile saying, ‘but I am to blame. We, I and my mother, both failed to keep an eye on her.
‘Do you know the truth?’ She stood behind the back of her armchair and put both hands on it. ‘No, you do not know the truth! Who will tell it to you? No one but me will open your eyes—I alone will not be afraid!
‘The truth is that my sister is an adventuress, a fantasist, a fabricator, and simply an ordinary liar! Fourteen years ago she invented a “fianc;” for herself, and, using this non-existent fianc;, she ran away from the boarding school in which she studied together with me! I barely managed to find her—and I was put out of the door. She also invented her so-called guru, or rather, she seated a simple social failure on a royal throne: not only was he not any sort of “spiritual teacher”, he was not even an ordinary teacher. Her “mentor” did not even have a pedagogical education!
‘Whom, look, whom do you want to make the priestess of your new faith? Darya herself is a social failure. She has neither family, nor real work, nor children. Your so-called “mother” also has not taken vows—and never will take them: there is no place in monasticism for such . . . wayward donkeys! She lives at this dacha the year round, scraping along on chance orders, as though . . . as though she were some “eternal Sonya”, God forgive me!’ Olga crossed herself with a broad sweep. ‘She finished only a technical college, refused all her suitors—the real ones, not the invented ones!—she cringes at the very bottom of society . . . And this is your future priestess?!
‘Why, look, look at the poverty of that ersatz faith, of that pseudo-Christianity which she has created in place of the real one! Compare her “yellow scarf” with a genuine priest’s stole; compare with the true Gospel the miserable composition of that fantasist—her only man, who fled from her charms to another country and died there! Compare her, God forgive me, house on chicken legs with any Orthodox church! How have you, grown-up people, and some of you with grey in your beard—yes, Semyon Grigoryich, yes, I am addressing you!—become so blind as to take all this poverty for a “new word” and for a new revelation?
‘I have finished!’ Darya’s cousin pronounced, and lowered herself with dignity into her armchair. ‘Do now with me what you wish, if you have the heart to raise a hand against a defenceless Christian woman.’
‘All that Olga said is incredibly banal,’ I thought. ‘If all her words were printed on paper, they would seem a caricature; any reader would think that no one in their right mind would utter such crudely propagandistic, straightforward, and simple-minded speeches. And yet how effective this seeming simple-mindedness is! The power of slander is in its insistent banality. And also in the half-truth mixed with the lie, and of the half-truth there is more . . .’

 
11

Olga’s outburst made a strong impression. Avrely, for instance, even opened his mouth. On his face were reflected the desire to object and the strained work of thought—insufficient, I fear, to produce convincing arguments against what had been said. Semyon Grigoryevich, not raising his eyes, looked at one point on the ground: he was deeply ashamed and hurt by all this outrage. Yulia, turning away to one side, seemed to be crying quietly.
Dina’s gaze said eloquently: just give me a wink, and I will help you throw that madame out of here! Or I will manage without you . . . I shook my head negatively.
Here something else happened, entirely unexpected.
Darya Arkadyevna rose, leaning on the stick propped against the juniper.
‘My sister is right,’ she said in a calm, even slightly lifeless voice. ‘So it serves me right. Olga is mistaken in how she sees and how she interprets my life, but in almost everything she spoke of, she is formally right. I am indeed a social failure; I really did finish only a technical college; I really did drive away my suitors. I really do live from order to order, like a “perpetual Sonya”. Some days I even forget to eat . . . How can I be the leader of a community? It is laughable. We have probably undertaken all this in vain, and does it even matter now? Forgive me. I . . . I will go, perhaps.’
This announcement caused a small commotion. Most of those present rose to their feet after her, looking at one another helplessly, not knowing what to undertake. ‘Where is she going?’ quiet questions were heard, and after them—alarmed exclamations at full voice: ‘Where will you go, Darya Arkadyevna?!’
‘Not far,’ the mistress of the house explained laconically. ‘Just . . . to take a walk, to breathe the air.’
Leaning on her stick and stepping heavily, she passed between Olga and her ‘bodyguard’, without even turning her head in the direction of her sister.
Approaching the house, she bowed briefly to it, laying her hand on her heart, and, turning to us, bowed to all of us in the same manner, saying a silent thank you. She pronounced:
‘I ask that no one be blamed, and especially I ask that no one among the disciples or relatives follow after me.’
In the complete silence of those gathered, Dorothea Arkadyevna reached the gate and went out beyond the fence. The bolt clicked quietly.

12

I moved to the neighbouring bench—to the one where the mistress of the house, who had just left us, had been sitting—and in a whisper asked Carey to go after her, not to lose sight of her!
‘And the minutes?’ she whispered back to me. ‘Though who needs them now, and what a fool I am to be asking about the minutes . . .’
As though a barely audible sigh of relief came from each person’s breast when the girl ran out into the passage between the plots, banging the gate.
The assembly, however, had to be conducted further: not so much for the sake of the assembly itself, the legal essence of which was crumbling before our eyes, as for the sake of not leaving without an answer all that monstrous ‘truth’ hanging in the air. I, having cleared my throat, rose to my feet and put my hands behind my back, clasping my right wrist with my left hand.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, our work continues!’ I announced in a stentorian voice. 'I will ask everyone to be seated! Thank you . . . Two times two—give the little turtle a chance to say something too!’
(‘From what stupid anecdote did this attach itself?’flashed through my mind. In the next second I remembered the anecdote itself—but there was no time to think about it.)
‘The criticisms levelled at Dorothea Arkadyevna Smirnova are so weighty that in another place they would perhaps pass for accusations,’ my voice continued confidently. I was in my element; I knew what to do. ‘It was strange for me, and not only for me, to see how this summer lawn became a sort of courtroom. But since that is what has happened, the accused must have not only a prosecutor: she has a right to a defender as well!’
‘I am accusing no one!’ Olga shot back from where she sat. I ironically inclined my head in her direction, agreeing:
‘Of course! And I am not defending anyone either. I am simply going to say what comes into my mind, and I ask everyone for a moment’s attention.
‘Darya Arkadyevna has been suspected of being an adventuress and a fabricator. The truth is that she invented the harmless legend about the fianc; only in order to have the opportunity to receive instruction from her real teacher and to escape the stifling care of her “loving sister”. The full measure of Olga Nikolaevna's love and care for her sister each of us has just observed and could fully appreciate.
‘Ordinary people lie in order to present themselves as better than they are and to obtain goods they have not deserved. Darya Arkadyevna, having spread a legend that harmed no one, portrayed herself as worse than she is in order to obtain what she had a full and indisputable right to. Does Olga Nikolaevna continue to consider this a lie? Well, she and I have different understandings of what is to be called a lie and what is not; what is shameful and what is worthy.
‘The reasonings about the “bottom of society” are so absurd, so permeated with the vain anxiety of a person rooted in the world, so contrary to the spirit of Christianity, of which Olga Nikolaevna has arbitrarily decided that she can be the monopoly interpreter, that I do not even consider it necessary to refute them. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”—it seems Christ himself was a “social failure”, a bigger one than any of those gathered here! By the way, since we are on the subject: the Son of Man did not even finish a technical college. And remind me, please: which of the outstanding Orthodox ascetics had a pedagogical education?
‘As for the comparison of this likeable little house, which has been undeservedly called a “house on chicken legs”, with any of the Orthodox churches, there vividly presents itself to me a picture from the first centuries of Christianity. A dim cellar, where the first disciples of Christ are whispering about something. Suddenly, “thundering with fire and flashing with the gleam of steel”, a Roman centurion descends into this cellar and proclaims loudly, “Look at your wretched den, which you have called a temple and made a laughing-stock! Compare it with the majestic Temple of All the Gods in the glorious city of Rome! And after that you dare to babble about the superiority of your faith? Have you not gone out of your minds?”
‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends and comrades, I would be misunderstood if you decided that I am setting official Christianity against the faith of “Mother Dorothea”, that I am prophesying that the days of Christianity are numbered as in the first centuries of our faith the days of Roman polytheism were already numbered. All of this is incorrect if only because Darya Arkadyevna has not created any new faith. If you insist on finding the author of this “new faith”, then blame her teacher—but better free him too from unjust accusations. She is not the priestess of some mysterious cult, and her strength is in something quite different.
‘All those gathered know that Dorothea Arkadyevna possesses beyond-the-ordinary abilities, cultivated by years of stubborn inner labour, and not at all “fallen straight into her lap”, as her cousin enviously let slip two days ago in conversation with me. We underestimate envy as a driving force of our actions . . . But I feel that the argument about beyond-the-ordinary abilities is petty, unworthy, that I should not use it, for those abilities are not the point at all. Darya Arkadyevna is a person of such courage, wholeness, and moral steadfastness as are granted to one in a hundred or one in a thousand. She is a spring of living water in the cemetery of life. It so happened that this spring required an enclosure, and those who came to draw water, a roof over their heads. That is why I would ask all those gathered to vote for the creation of the religious group “The Oasis” by raising a hand.’
‘Bravo, Oleg Valeryevich!’ Kachinsky pronounced from his seat with unexpected force, and was the first to raise his hand. There was no applause, and I had not expected any, but from the remaining co-founders of the religious group, voting one after another in favour, came ‘Bravo!’—‘Bravo!’
Olga sat with a face of stone, her arms demonstratively folded on her breast, one leg crossed over the other.
‘We vote against,’ her young companion pronounced, not very confidently. These were the first and only words we had heard from him.
‘Sorry, but you are not a member of the group,’ I politely objected to him, barely restraining a smile, thinking to myself, ‘You greenhorn, so you want to try conclusions with me on legal ground!’ Aloud, of course, I pronounced something else:
‘If you were really a member of the association, you could scarcely vote against its creation: it is pure nonsense! But let us not quibble over trifles. Everyone has the right to nonsense, and I will be glad to enter a special minority opinion into the minutes. Only here is the trouble: I do not know how to record you, for you have not even introduced yourself! Will you be good enough as to give your surname, first name, and patronymic, so that we may know the name of the co-founder of the “new cult”?’
At that moment my mobile telephone rang.

13

Karolina was calling, and by the tone of her voice I understood that the matter stood very, very badly. A couple of her words were enough for me to hurry to the gate, barely having managed to explain to the others where and why I was hurrying.
‘Shall I come with you?’ Semyon Grigoryevich made a movement to help me.
‘Better prepare a bed in the workroom and open all the windows!’ I shouted to him on the run.

Darya Arkadyevna’s plot was quite near the entrance to the gardening association. Immediately beyond the entrance a pine wood began, through which a path led to the bus stop.
In the wood I saw the two of them.
Dorothea Arkadyevna was sitting, leaning—or rather, leant—with her back against a tree. Could it really already be over?!
Lifting her in my arms, not knowing whether she was alive or dead, I hurried to her house, listening to Karolina’s hurried, confused explanations.
Somewhere halfway, Carey recounted, Darya had turned around and gently beckoned to her with her hand. They trudged side by side, very slowly, the way old people walk.
‘She said a couple of times, “I will go away, go far away, I will walk the world,” the girl hurried to convey to me. “Good Lord, Darya Arkadyevna, where will you go?” I answered her. “Everyone loves you, respects you, dotes on you!” “No,” she kept repeating, “I will go wherever my eyes look!” ’
All this did not last long. Having reached the wood, Darya staggered and began to sink. ‘She fell to the earth slowly, like a tall brick tower,’ I remembered Karolina’s comparison. A fanciful image, but what images do not come to a person in moments of agitation and grief!
Carey was so frightened that she did not even think of calling the ambulance. But, fortunately, she rang me. The rest the reader already knows.

Halfway to the house I was met by a breathless Semyon Grigoryevich. Did I not need help, should he not carry her with me? No, help was not needed: I felt no weight at all.

Barely had I stepped onto the plot than Olga Nikolaevna blocked my way.
‘What is happening to her?!’ she asked—even demanded—explanations in a peremptory tone. ‘Where are you carrying her?’
‘Oh, blast you altogether . . .’ This unflattering phrase I think I pronounced aloud.
‘I have a right to know!’ Olga continued to insist. ‘I am her sister!’
‘Carey, my dear person!’ I groaned. 'Do something, chuck these two out of here! You see, I am not managing . . .’
What help can be expected from a young girl in such a matter? But the future showed that Carey coped excellently with my difficult errand. I do not know exactly how: perhaps she threatened Olga and her bodyguard with the police, or perhaps she promised immediately to ring the regional diocesan administration and tell them everything about the doings of those two. The second is most likely.

Darya was laid on the bed in the workroom—a room unexpectedly small for all five disciples who crowded at her bedside. Here, to our joy, she opened her eyes—and even attempted to raise herself a little. This she did not manage: she succeeded only in raising her head.
‘How many children the Lord has sent me,’ she said quietly, with a weak tongue. ‘And all such glorious children, good, and already quite grown up . . .’
Here, it seems, sobbing was heard.
‘I will call the ambulance, then, Oleg Valeryevich, right?’ Kachinsky put in.
‘No!’ Darya exclaimed, hearing him (already without any strength in her voice: about the way very small children are angry). ‘No, no ambulance! Let me breathe quietly!’
I gestured to Semyon Grigoryevich that the question was better postponed, that the sick woman should not be agitated in vain.

The time that had flown past since the moment of Carey’s call suddenly began to slow, to thicken. Both windows in the room were open, and yet all of us became stifled, anxious, frightened.
But Darya Arkadyevna was still with us. She, though it had become extremely difficult for her to make the slightest effort, occasionally opened her eyes and said—or rather, whispered—separate phrases, unconnected with one another, but fully meaningful. These phrases, as many as I managed to remember, I have given below, in reduced type.

Do not cry, please. Not for very long, but I did live. There was everything in my life. You do not even know how much there was!

Words mean nothing. People do not understand how little words mean! In our days, the woman who sells herself reads a sermon about morality. And who am I to judge her? I am even worse than her, much worse.

Yulyenka, take my Personal Diary for Girls, it’s in the desk, and keep it! Do not give it to anyone. Let Oleg take the notebook with the Gospel.

Do not worry, nothing good disappears.

Avrely, my dear one! Grow up, once and for all.

Semyon Grigoryevich, do not reproach yourself! What is it, dear—your face has quite gone. You will live a while longer and do a few good things.

There, on the worktable, three toys are left. Take them, whichever each of you likes. Oleg should not take one, otherwise there will not be enough for someone else. He has my fox.

Oleg must be given something too. Find the ball of yellow wool on my table. Thank you, my good ones. Tie it on the fox as a scarf around her neck! She will be glad.

Dinochka, did you really think I had forgotten you? Live as you can, only do not touch married men and do not do great evil. Are you a sinner? I am a greater sinner than you . . .

Give my regards to Karolina, the dear one. Ah, here she is, already here. What a wonderful girl! Only may she not be spoiled.

I never delivered two orders. Well, God will forgive. I took no money in advance.

There, in my desk drawer, a little is put aside, for just such an occasion. Take it, use it. Do everything cheaply. Cremate me, if you can. Forgive me, I did not manage to save up more. Forgive me for everything I did not manage. Oleg, I did not find your Kira, though I do have a guess. I will tell you later, later.

Lord, how tired I am, how tired I am . . .

This ‘How tired I am . . .’ was the last thing Dorothea Arkadyevna said. Having closed her eyes, she for a good half hour or more breathed evenly, quietly, barely audibly. During that time someone did nevertheless manage to call the ambulance carriage. We, having calmed, seated ourselves in the corners of the room on chairs brought in from outside, and Dina even put the kettle on in the kitchen.
At thirty-five minutes past one, the breathing of the mistress of the house sharply quickened, causing us all to be thrown into commotion. But how little we could do! Five minutes later this breathing ceased entirely.
Semyon Grigoryevich, who was closer to the bed than anyone, maintained that the lips moved soundlessly before the onset of the final moment. He did not make out the words; nor, of course, did anyone else.

14

The ambulance, arriving about twenty minutes later, established death. The principal diagnosis was myocardial infarction against a background of presumed ischaemic heart disease. Alternative diagnoses were also named, such as stress cardiomyopathy—a phrase I find difficult even to remember, still more to pronounce, and therefore doubt its necessity for the reader.
I think I must also spare the reader an excessively thorough description of the remainder of that sad day and of the three days that followed. ‘All happy families are alike,’ said the great Russian classic—but he forgot to mention that all funerals, alas, are also alike in one another.
I had to declare myself the civil husband of the deceased: it was precisely this dubious status that raised no questions from the medics or the funeral service, so that I could freely attend to the organization of the funeral. I suspect that this decision—probably somewhat hasty—will afterwards give occasion for ugly gossip of various kinds: of course not in the narrow circle of the followers, each of whom knows how everything actually was, but in the ‘big world’. But what is the big world’s business with one man? The world is the cemetery of true life, I repeat after the teacher of my teacher; this cemetery is constantly burying its dead, in order to give itself over to mindless merriment right among the graves, so what business have we got with this cemetery? The last sentence sounds, I fear, somewhat sectarian, but I will not correct it.
Incidentally, the rumours had already begun to spread as it was. A completely wild piece of gossip had already reached me about a certain odious newest cult, which had first made its leader, or according to another version its ‘leaderess’, into a symbolic tsar, so as afterwards, on the same day, to give this tsar or tsarina up for slaughter, thus performing a ritual sacrifice. To fight this nonsense by legal means, which was my first impulse, seems utterly useless: all that remains is to wait until they have gossiped about us and forgotten us: nothing in this world lasts forever.
In Dorothea Arkadyevna’s desk a small sum of money was indeed found, which covered approximately a third of the expenses of her funeral. Her last will concerning cremation was fulfilled.
On the Wednesday of that sad week, two people rang me whom I had not in the least expected to hear again.
The first was Kristina: she had been informed of Darya’s death by Mefodyev, and he, evidently, by Olga. No, Kristina was of course not intending to come to the funeral, but . . . did I not need any help? I, having declined, sincerely thanked her for this touching offer. The conversation consisted of nothing but awkward moments, but we knew that, having put down the receiver, we would probably never see each other or speak on the phone again, and that was probably why we talked—and were silent into the receiver—longer than one could have expected from this call.
The second was Olga, who offered to take upon herself all the expenses of the funeral—but on the obligatory condition that the cremation, a ‘non-Christian’ and even ‘God-opposed’ procedure, be replaced by ordinary burial. Having politely thanked her, I declined.
Running ahead, I will say that the second time the cousin of the deceased rang me on the evening of Thursday. One single question interested her: was Darya cremated in a white dress?
‘N-no,’ I answered, caught off guard by her astonishing question. ‘She did not ask for that, to be honest . . .’
‘Do you not know that innocent girls are supposed to be buried in a white dress?’ the voice in the receiver continued.
‘Behold the man!’ I thought. Aloud I pronounced something else:
‘Olga Nikolaevna, you yourself not long ago assured me that your sister lived in marital relations with her teacher. How do you rhyme the one with the other?’
‘And you believed me?’ Olga asked with suspicion.
‘No, I did not believe you.’
‘Then why did you not take care of the white dress?’
Oh Lord, why! Ask me another! Because we do not bind ourselves with a thousand superstitious conventions! ‘It is not me you will be burying, but my dead body,’ said Socrates to his disciples. How is it that people who call themselves honest Christians still cannot assimilate even this ‘pagan’ wisdom?!
But on the phone I said:
‘Dear Olga Nikolaevna, for every idle word a man will give an answer, some after death and some in life. Was it not you who spread the gossip about her “only man”? Well, now reproach yourself for the absence of a white dress: there is no one else.’
Olga, having answered me nothing, put down the receiver.

15

The funeral took place on Thursday. All of Darya Arkadyevna’s disciples were present. Karolina was not. I felt awkward when she was concerned, in general: inviting her on Monday to the founding assembly of the group, I had not thought at all that she, so young, would have to observe another’s death with her own eyes. I even sent her a letter with my apologies. To this letter she answered me with a short note.

What vulgarity, what a terrible vulgarity you have written! Does it follow that if I am sixteen, I am not a person, but a light version of a person?! Does it follow that I need to be kept in a special playpen for infants?! Forgive me. I do not understand what I am saying. I am unwell, very unwell. I am in such pain, as though an invisible cold blade had reached the very heart. You are not in the least to blame for this, Uncle Oleg, stop already sprinkling ashes on your head. I will certainly write to you again! Some time later. And if never, then do not remember me with anything bad. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me! I write—and cannot hold back the tears that fall on the keyboard . . .

Somewhat excessively dramatic, but who will condemn youth for drama? At that age it is more salutary to exaggerate than to be a callous pragmatist (I seem to be repeating Darya Arkadyevna’s thought, simply in other words). Well, then—one more sad farewell has taken place . . .
I return to Thursday. We, the ‘friends of the deceased’, as we began to be called, declined the civil master of ceremonies, and declined the priest as well. In this decision there was no challenge, no desire to throw a gauntlet in the face of the official Church, no spitefulness. We simply were not certain that the deceased would have approved of a church funeral service. Her last words contained no request that she be given a funeral according to Orthodox custom, though she had managed to give instructions both about cremation and even about the financial side of the matter. Was it worth then performing a ritual to which Dorothea Arkadyevna herself was probably indifferent, and which Dina found positively unpleasant? Dina blamed for Darya’s death—calling this death nothing other than destruction—‘the whole of Orthodoxy’, and what Orthodox prayers over the coffin of the deceased could there be in that case? I must say that in her embitterment she turned out to be alone: of the other disciples, no one put, and no one puts, an equals sign between the Russian Orthodox Church and Olga Nikolaevna Smirnova. And was the latter, when you come right down to it, so very much to blame?
Semyon Grigoryevich on the eve had inquired whether I would manage to say a few words at the leave-taking ceremony. All the ‘friends’, if he is to be believed, had been delighted by my ‘speech in defence’, and surely I could pronounce something similar again? I could not, I answered: the occasion was too sad. But would the group be against it if, during the leave-taking, I read aloud the last chapter of The Gospel of the Little Prince? This proposal fully satisfied all the participants of the funeral.

16

The Chapter on the Water of Life

1. Water is necessary to the heart, said the Author of the Tale. But where is water for the heart to be found?
2. The whole world is dying of thirst and groaning, and through all the corners of the world this groan is carried: oh give, give water for the heart!
3. You will not find water in the cemetery. The dead cemetery flowers have no need of water.
4. Nimble traders dart between the graves, offering cooling or intoxicating drinks. But one must not drink these drinks. If you drink them, you will turn into a little goat or a real big goat, as another tale, a folk one, foretold.
5. Believe in fairy tales, friends!
6. But even in the desert water is rare. Long, long the traveller wanders before he can find a well.
7. What is a well? A depth of a soul that has grown wise. What is water, transparent, quenching thirst, laughing, sparkling in the sun? The living word of the Teacher.
8. There will be found the beasts of the desert, the contemplators of mirages, the traders of cooling and intoxicating drinks—and all of them, merging their voices into a common chorus, will shout at you, ‘Do not drink, do not drink this water! What if it is poisoned?’
9. ‘Drink rather tested drinks, and you will rejoice in them! Look: each is made in a factory that has guaranteed the quality, and on each bottle an excise stamp is pasted!’
10. ‘And if you disdain factory drinks, then do not drink anything at all, perhaps. Who said that one absolutely must drink water? Many worthy people live, until their very death not knowing the taste of water, not having drunk a single sip.’
11. ‘Our fathers and grandfathers kept away from water, and some even filled the wells with stones. What now, will you in your turn throw a stone at your father and grandfather?’
12. Do not listen to this chorus, do not believe those who lament. Without water a man dies.
13. If you are afraid of poison, then open your eyes and see whether the water is clear; check whether it smells of malice, of envy, of the gall of barren reasonings, of the vulgarity of simple-mindedness. Not for nothing were eyes given to you, and not for nothing is a nose attached to your head!
14. To those who reason about an invisible and odourless poison, answer thus:
15. ‘Having drunk poisoned water, we die. But without water too we die. Therefore—I seek the well. Come with me, traveller, if you wish and if you are able!’
16. Having clothed yourself in the galabiya of everyday labour, having put on the keffiyeh of fearlessness before verbal attacks, having taken in your hands the staff of patience, walk straight on in search of the spring! You will not tire until you yourself permit yourself to tire.
17. And here it is, your well! Having found it, do not lose sight of it. Permit yourself, at the sight of the spring, even to become the very least bit mad. Allow no one to take from you what you have obtained by the labour of weary feet.
18. Bring a friend to the well; bring the Fox to it; bring, perhaps, the Little Sheep too: sometimes the Little Sheep also want to drink.
19. But do not tell an enemy about the spring. The Drunkard, the indifferent one, or the curious one has no need to know about it either.
20. There is nothing more precious than the water of life; not for all the money in the world can you buy even a single drop. You will obtain it only by the labour of your feet and only by the steadfastness of your heart.

17

On the day after the funeral, on Friday, having asked in advance for permission to come, Semyon Grigoryevich paid me a visit.
Sitting in the kitchen over tea and smiling somewhat strainedly, we talked about various trifles—as far as in our position it was possible at all to talk about trifles—before Kachinsky came to the purpose of his visit. According to him, the group had already acquired the yellow scarf.
‘For what?’ I did not understand the reason.
‘How do you mean? To present it to you, Oleg Valeryevich.’
‘This is, excuse me . . . some sort of ritual?’ Alas, I have always been, and remain, a slow-witted man.
‘It is no ritual at all, beyond being a sign that we choose you as our Prince. In the light of the Gospel, of course, and not in the sense of creating an independent feudal state on the territory of Russia, or any other separatism from the secular authority.’
‘Semyon Grigoryevich, but why me in particular?’
‘Well, think for yourself, Oleg Valeryevich: who else but you! You gathered the group together. You notified the Ministry of Justice about the creation of the community . . .’
‘I haven’t done it yet, sorry,’ I interrupted him.
‘Then do it already, I beg you! You, like a certain knight, came out against the slanderous criticisms of Olga Nikolaevna and destroyed her arguments with your remarkable eloquence. Finally, it was precisely concerning you that Darya Arkadyevna herself gave instructions that this should be done! How can we not honour the last will of the deceased?’
‘And when, allow me to ask, did she give instructions that this be done concerning me?’
‘On Monday, when she asked that the yellow wool be tied on the fox’s neck,’ Kachinsky explained. ‘For you alone were raised to this rank, were you not?’
‘So that is the way you have interpreted it . . . I asked, so she raised me to it,’ I muttered. ‘And “this rank” is not so great that one should call it a rank at all.’
‘Well, there you see!’ my companion agreed. ‘You found the courage to ask. And we kept mum.’
‘I do not feel at all worthy to accept the title of Prince!’ I continued to fight off his idea.
‘And who does?’
‘What sort of Prince am I, Semyon Grigoryevich, only think! All it needs now is to tell my colleagues at work that you want to make a Prince—Myshkin out of me! I will never get over the laughter and the shame . . .’
‘Can it really matter to you so much what your colleagues at work will say, and can you really not endure either laughter or shame?’ I was answered with seriousness.
‘I will endure it, of course . . . Only I will not be a real Prince! How could I, think for yourself, be up to Darya Arkadyevna? I am a man thoroughly secular, corrupt, ungifted, and I have no time for spiritual practices. A false Prince will come out of me, a plastic one, the most ordinary False Dmitry, that is, pardon me, a False Oleg.’
‘A False Oleg could not possibly come out of you, for you are not laying claim to someone else’s name . . . I understand, Oleg Valeryevich, I understand your fears, and I share your agitation! Only without a Prince, any Prince, even the shabbiest one, the group will fall apart entirely.’
‘Then let it fall apart . . .’
‘And do you really believe that that would be better?’ the old man answered me without a smile, thoughtfully.
I fell silent. Indeed, would that be better? If only one could know with certainty what is better . . .
‘And why did you then read to us yesterday the last chapter of the Gospel, and how did you have the spirit to read it?’ my companion continued with a firmness that astonished me. ‘In words we say one thing, but in deeds we do another?’
‘We have, in fact, hardly started with any deeds . . . I am not a source of living water, Semyon Grigoryevich!’
Semyon Grigoryevich, like a clever crow, tilted his head to one side and somewhat askew, showing that he partly agreed with me, but immediately objected:
‘You, however, are the last who drank from the source, and you stood closest to the source.’
‘There, there—this is how cults are made!’ the author of these notes picked up. ‘First we exalt the one who stood closest to the source, even if he is an ordinary dry stick, and then the one who stood closest to the first one . . . And what will the group do, what prayers will it read, what rituals perform? Darya Arkadyevna herself, as you know, was not a great lover of rituals . . .’
‘We will find prayers, and we will invent rituals,’ my opposite number would not give in.
‘True, we will invent them!’ I agreed. ‘And, having invented them, we will take the tale about the Prince, which for our foundress and her teacher was nothing more than a beautiful didactic metaphor, and we will make it substantial, will thicken it, will receive it with full churchly seriousness and entirely literally. Will we not thereby create a new, er, sect, will we not break off from the faith within which we grew up? And, having done so, will we do a good thing?’
Kachinsky spread his hands.
‘Do you really suppose, Oleg Valeryevich, that I haven’t been tormented by this question either?’ he said. ‘For how many days now I have been asking myself the very same thing . . . Of course we will create one, of course we will break off! Everything living puts out shoots. God willing, our little branch will live a while on the tree of Christianity . . .’
‘You know, the larch in my courtyard has survived,’ I suddenly remembered, probably rather out if place. ‘Yes, it will live, until a gardener appears with pruning shears.’
‘Are you speaking of His Holiness or of the All-Russian Council? We will see yet, we will see about the gardener . . . Oh, I reproach myself so much for my faint-heartedness last Sunday!’ he unexpectedly jumped, as it first seemed to me, to a new theme—but the theme was the same. ‘I was afraid that after my death I would not be commemorated in church—and is that really a disaster for me, an old fool? Who made me give away the phone number of our blessed one, what devil made me open my mouth?! And now I am striving to rebuild, with your hands, what I myself broke, and what good will it do . . . I am . . . I am one of the chief murderers! What will you say?’
‘Well, there you have invented something, Semyon Grigoryevich!’ I exclaimed—and, for his consolation, I began to tell him about the last day of the previous week, including ‘I spoke with the Serpent’ and ‘Oh, the plank is ending . . .’ Kachinsky listened to me very attentively, and, having heard the little verse of Agnia Barto, his whole face brightened.
‘You ought to write all these events and conversations down, eh?’ he asked. ‘In the form of a diary, or a chronicle, or even, for instance, a novel. You will do a priceless thing!’
‘Such a thought has already visited me . . . A fine novel, written for exactly four readers!’
‘What if just for one, so what!’ my companion parried. ‘The teacher of Darya Arkadyevna herself had exactly one spiritual disciple, and he was not embarrassed by that.’
‘Yes, that is . . . a convincing argument,’ I admitted.
‘So what will you say about the yellow scarf, Oleg Valeryevich? When shall we hold the solemn ceremony?’
‘Allow me nevertheless to think for a few days first!’ I asked. ‘One has to make up one’s mind before such a matter . . .’
‘Think, my dear, think!’ Kachinsky agreed. ‘Only not too long. Otherwise a temptation will appear in us to seek a Prince on the side, and we will crash through the thickets to some outside pastor, tearing our sides, like stupid rams . . .’
We parted in friendship, and I promised the former deacon not to delay my answer.

18

Now I will tell of something astonishing, incredible, or even of something that did not happen at all.
On the night between Saturday and Sunday, Dorothea Arkadyevna visited me briefly in a dream. As the ‘scenery of the dream’ she chose my own flat, which is why everything happening seemed terribly lifelike, so much so that I even asked myself whether I was really sleeping or was dreaming awake, having woken in the middle of the night.
My friend and teacher appeared in my dream as having grown younger, or in any case rested, but the features of her face had not significantly changed. She wore the same skirt and blouse that we had seen on her on the day of her death.
‘Hello!’ she addressed me cheerfully. ‘What, do I not look quite so bad?’
‘You look wonderful,’ was all I could say.
‘Not frightened to talk to a dead woman?’ she teased me.
‘Come, what sort of a dead woman are you. . .’
‘That’s true: I make an unimpressive deceased . . . I wanted to wait for the ninth day, but I could not hold out.’
‘Semyon Grigoryevich came to see me yesterday, no, the day before yesterday already,’ I suddenly remembered something important.
‘I know,’ she nodded. ‘Then you should agree!’
‘Will you permit me to think?’ I asked. ‘Never, not even in a nightmare, could I have imagined myself a cult leader!’
‘Think, think, your stubborn head! I love you for your stubbornness. I love all of you. Do you think I came to you just like that, for a bit of mischief? I promised, so I came. I think I have found your Kira!’
‘Where?!’
‘Do not shout, you will wake the neighbours . . . Look among your closest acquaintances.’
‘But who?’
‘Guess for yourself! Only two little letters in the name need to be swapped . . . I will not stay, or they will give me a dressing-down.’
And—gone she was, and after some time I discovered that I was lying in bed, half raised on my elbows. Had I woken after the end of the ‘conversation’, or had I observed my companion in some sort of doze? And perhaps I had invented the whole thing?
Meetings with spirits are not, for me, among the reliable sources of information, just as books or films about ghosts are not my favourite genre. That is why for a time I doubted whether it was worth including this fragment in the final text. The fragment, as the reader may see, is included, but, in order not to lose face, I make an important reservation: I ask that what has just been written be treated as artistic fiction and a literary device. With what purpose was this device used, what exactly did the author want to say by it? Let the critics argue about that—if, of course, my modest composition interests even one critic.
 
19

On the nineteenth of June, a Monday, in the regional scientific library there took place the presentation of Savely Ivanovich Mefodyev’s book Lessons in Mentorship.
About this presentation I had told myself in advance that I would not go to it, that I had nothing to do there—and all the same I did not hold out; I went. The spiritual father of my ex-wife was in my mind connected with everything that had recently happened; he had become something like the background of my story, and the background itself seemed to me strangely dear, the way a wooden gazebo is dear to us, the one in which we declared our love to a girl—even if that ungainly gazebo has had time almost to fall apart. That, at least, is how I explained my motives to myself; but probably there was also, in the depth of my consciousness, a less Christian, less benevolent intention . . .
I was late for the beginning of the event, having lingered at the entrance, where I—having forgotten the way to the library for a good twenty years and long since having lost my reader’s ticket—was required to obtain a temporary pass. ‘The bureaucratism of all these cultural institutions is astonishing,’ I thought, going up the stairs to the reading room. ‘One might instead rejoice at yet one more visitor! Or is the pass a way of underlining the elitism of what is taking place?’
In the reading room I, noticed by no one, sat down in a free place in the back row of folding chairs, having tried to hide behind someone's broad back.
Mefodyev, as always tall, portly, and handsome, recounted in a penetrating rumbling little bass out of what tiniest grains—confessions, the admonishing of the young, conversations with unhappy married couples, talks with chance fellow-travellers, pilgrimage journeys, reflections over the pages of favourite authors or over the beauties of our Russian nature—his Lessons had been composed, what important conclusions and notes he had himself extracted from his nearly forty years of activity as a mentor and preacher. That is why, in fact, the book is called Lessons in Mentorship, though the title seemed unclear to the editor, who on the title page of the manuscript, having underlined ‘Lessons’, placed next to it three fat red question marks—but it is precisely about the extracted lessons that the talk is, lessons of the knowledge of the heart, lessons of wisdom, for he who teaches learns himself, and that is why he, the author, even at his sixty-four years still feels like a boy sitting at a school desk on an early morning of a fine spring day—and the day is still so long and at the same time so joyful . . .
Every lawyer, especially a lawyer with experience of defending his clients in court, has the skill of distinguishing almost mechanically what is really important in another’s oral speech from ritual verbiage, and of listening to the latter with half an ear. The whole of Mefodyev’s speech did not exactly fit entirely into the category of verbiage, but somehow constantly balanced on its edge, and this, I confess, irritated me—with every minute, more and more. Savely Ivanovich was pronouncing good, correct, and clever words—but words behind which no reality could be seen. Which confession, made in the confessional, let him rethink something, and why? If he was afraid of violating the seal of the confessional, a hint would have been enough for us. What did that chance fellow-traveller tell him that forced him to open his eyes to something not noticed before? On which page exactly of his favourite book did his gaze once linger, and what was the book about? Mefodyev had been speaking for a little over twenty minutes, and I had still not heard anything that would resolve my perplexity. Perhaps the author was simply tongue-tied, or had not managed to overcome his embarrassment before the audience; perhaps living, convincing, soul-touching examples were contained in the text itself—who knows? To find that out, one would have had to buy the book. Unfortunately, I did not want to buy it at all.
The speech at last came to an end, and the friendly librarian invited questions.
I raised my hand, and then rose as well. Nearly half of those present turned towards me, and in the reading room silence fell.
Savely Ivanovich, of course, saw me too—and clearly recognised me. Only seven or eight metres separated us: at such a distance it is hard not to recognise a man. It seemed to me that his face somehow twisted. From horror?
Oh, I could have asked many things, and could have said still more! On the way to the library I had been sketching in my head what I ought to say, and in what exact expressions I ought to brand this empty, benevolent, sweet-tongued eloquence!
But fantasy played a cruel trick on me.
A couple of seconds before I spoke, I heard in my head the voice of Darya, with her inimitable intonations and with the slight provincial accent peculiar to her alone.
‘Calm down,’ the imagined voice said to me. ‘Grow up, you too, little child. What use will anyone get from your accusations? How are you now different from Olga? By the fact that you will tell the truth? But she too believed she was telling the truth! You are like an angry child who is about to break other people’s toys. Are you not ashamed?!’
Having cleared my throat, I peacefully pronounced:
‘Savely Ivanovich, I thank you for a very interesting speech! I would like to know: what exactly served as the first impulse for the creation of your Lessons?’

20

My story is approaching its end. In fact, the story itself has already ended—from the past tense I can switch to the present, to the middle of the fourth week of June, at which I began to write these notes. ‘Write’ is, in my case, an imprecise verb: I do not write them—I dictate them onto my mobile phone, and afterwards pass them through a speech-recognition programme to obtain a printed text.
My notes are chaotic: now one thing comes back to me, now another. But out of what was at first complete confusion, a whole gradually begins to show through, and the whole more and more resembles a literary text. Some day, probably, I will get around to working on this text properly, to mould out of these notes a real novel. I have never once tried to write novels, and that is why I will evidently have to find a co-author, someone more skilful, more experienced in this craft, and put his surname on the cover as the second name—or the first, if that is how he wants it. Or even the only one? My own literary ambitions are paltry, and therefore I will not object if this not-yet-written novel comes out under someone else’s name—so long, of course, as my as-yet-unfound co-author does not take it into his head to distort the events that took place. Everything that happened, we shall have to call ‘artistic fiction’, but I am prepared to make this sacrifice, not nearly so great as it seems at first glance.
The reader who has been following the text only for its plot may close the book right here. In advance I say to such a reader ‘farewell’ and ‘thank you’. But, having taken leave of him, I, a sceptic, a rationalist, a child of my age, continue to ask myself questions—and I will continue to ask them until I find answers, or until I understand that I will never find those answers. Even after all the spectators have dispersed and the light in the auditorium has gone out, on the dark stage I will go on asking myself my questions.

Why did Darya Arkadyevna die?

The diagnosis made by the doctors is known to us, and I do not dispute their diagnosis. But besides the purely medical causes, are there not, in her case, others as well? Perhaps her heart was wearied and prematurely worn out by journeys and descents invisible to the world? Ought we to believe her, who said that in a past life she committed a great sin, which she expiated by the brevity of the present one? Did Olga’s escapade serve as the real cause of the death, or as the impulse to it, or did it simply coincide in time with what was in any case bound to happen?

To what extent am I to blame for her early death?

Could it have happened that I, driven by the professional deformation of my mind, exaggerated the dangers threatening the group? Probably it was precisely my announcement about the community establishment that provoked the hostile attitude towards us—is that not so? And did not the agitations connected with the creation of the group finally undermine the health of our teacher? Perhaps without those agitations she would have lived longer?
Yes, I heard from her own lips that ‘the plank is ending’, I heard it with my own ears. But was it not I who shortened that plank? And I also think that it would, perhaps, be just like her to have dissembled a little, if only not to grieve me in vain . . .

Who was her teacher?

The reader probably remembers that once I asked Darya Arkadyevna to tell me more about her teacher, and to this she answered artlessly, ‘I would be glad to! But I know almost nothing about him.’
How has it happened that we know almost nothing about Alexander Mikhailovich Azurov? He traced across the sky of Russian provincial life as a bright and swift meteor. From where did this meteor fly in? Where did Alexander Mikhailovich study, in what institutions did he acquire his knowledge and his breadth of mind? Who, in their turn, was his teacher or his teachers? In the end, what faith did he profess? Did he engage in any spiritual practices? I have not the slightest way of learning the answers.

Who was ‘Mother Dorothea’?

Here is a question that is, as they say, the question of all questions, a million-dollar question. The daughter of an Orthodox cleric from a small town—how and by what steps did she ascend to her talents? In the end, she received instruction from her teacher for only a month and a half, and afterwards found herself wholly and entirely given over to herself, to her own inner voice. This voice led her along a straight path, and, it seems, never once erred.
However, were there talents at all? Olga's ‘What did you see in her?’ continues to sound in my ears. The disciples of Darya Arkadyevna are convinced that I made a splendid speech in her defence. I personally am convinced of this far less, as I am also of the necessity of that speech of mine at the time . . . What we all saw in her, I only feel: a certain special quality, which the author, though embarrassed by this solemn expression, might call ‘the aroma of righteousness’. As a rare flower, a short-lived but wondrous passionflower, she bloomed on our cold earth. The not yet fully written book is an attempt to preserve the aroma of this flower. But can such an aroma, like any aroma at all, be conveyed in words? The undertaking is almost hopeless, and I sadly foresee that a certain number of readers will probably go over to Olga’s side. Well, people like Olga will only be glad of this, and it would be just like them to thank me for my self-exposing pamphlet, which, against the author’s will, serves the cause of the denunciation of modern cults.

Were my wanderings through other worlds the truth, or a ‘projection of fantasy’?

About the spiritual world and its constitution I, being a man of a thoroughly pragmatic profession, understand nothing. Common sense and a feeling of natural scepticism tell me that a ‘projection of fantasy’ (my own or my guide’s) is a far easier thing than a genuine journey through the heavenly heights. The same thing, incidentally, was said to me by the many-headed monster met during the last journey.
But what sort of deceiver testifies against himself? And can one really trust demons, even real ones? And to trust imaginary demons is altogether absurd . . .
Finally, the incredible detail and the burning reality of my ‘dreams’ are ready to contend with any logic. That is why, notwithstanding common sense, I prefer to believe that somewhere there really exist both the wondrous world of the joyful beasts, and the Valley of the Suicides, and the scorched desert through which the dreadful Jabberwock wanders. This is that very credo to which Tertullian added quia absurdum, but since credo quia absurdum is not shameful for any Christian, let it be permitted me also to hold to my unfashionable conviction.
Strangely, the question written above now seems to me of little importance. Why would that be?

Is ‘the Christianity of the Little Prince’ a separate branch of Christianity, a tiny new shoot on the mighty thousand-year tree? Should one see in it specifically Christianity at all? Would it not be more correct to consider it, say, a small religion in its own right?

All that has been marked above in italics is a field for the reflections and interpretations of a learned theologian. And what sort of theologian am I! It is, perhaps, a bit late at my thirty-nine years to learn a new profession . . . And can there be exactitude in theology at all? In every investigator of the question of what one or another religious association is to be considered, one must suspect from the outset an interested party, for any such investigator either professes one or another faith—and therefore is disposed against the others—or is an atheist, and hence in all probability prejudiced against all religions at once.
Paradoxically, only people like the Prince—teachers who are not afraid to join Christian prayer with Eastern meditation, thinkers who advise their pupils today Plato, tomorrow Boethius, the day after tomorrow Kierkegaard, and the day after that Vivekananda—possess sufficient impartiality to say what one or another faith is to be considered. But with their breadth of worldview, does not this question perhaps lose its meaning altogether?
Has the time not come for me too, if only to try, to soar to the intellectual heights where ‘there is neither Greek nor Jew’? But how frightening even to think of these heights, on which it is so hard to breathe . . .

Why was A Personal Diary for Girls bequeathed to Yulya?

To paraphrase: is there in this Diary something that we ought not to know, something that would cast a shadow on the biography of the foundress of ‘The Oasis’?
The author of the notes (which he must already have unlearned to call notes, in order to assign them a more solid genre definition) does not doubt for a second that there is nothing of the sort in the Diary, and nothing of the sort could be there. In the end, even Olga’s phone call on the day of the funeral speaks in favour of my conviction. (Does it? At times I think that what guided Olga may have been the desire to catch me in contradictions, and not a concern for her sister’s honour.) But if one were to suppose for even a second—a supposition which I reject with all my soul—for even a moment, that the pages of the Diary really conceal something that would make the faithful ‘Dorotheans’ blush, then . . . then, Lord, what significance does that have?
To explain why this has no significance, I am almost unable. Here is a weak, unsatisfactory, and, probably, scarcely comprehensible explanation: victors are not judged. Darya Arkadyevna will remain in my memory precisely as a victor. She conquered the vulgarity of this world, moving like a trout against the common current of coarse and unkind human life. Victores non iudicantur—and I have nothing more to say about others’ suspicions.
I suppose that this whole answer, for a sceptically disposed reader, will sound like the voice of a man who has fallen under the influence of a cultist leader and has lost the last remnants of critical thinking. Too bad!

What did my dream about the warship mean?

Perhaps exactly what I saw, and I am vainly seeking in it another, symbolic meaning? Or are we ourselves, the disciples of Darya, to be understood under the drowned sailors? But why, then, were there six sailors?
If one believes that the ship from my dream really was the Saint Eustace Placidus, then is the dream connected with Kira? Kira’s surname was precisely Evstafyeva . . .

Did I really, a few days ago, converse with the deceased, or should no particular significance be attached to my dream, as to most dreams?

This question too is not among those that are within the power of reason. Only faith is capable of resolving doubts of this kind.
It seems I have let something slip, for a little earlier I called that conversation an invention, and it is impossible to doubt the unreality of an invention. Why, incidentally, do I mark this out particularly, when I intend to declare my whole novel to be precisely artistic fiction, and how can an invention exist inside an invention? What I am doing is like multiplying by zero one small part of a long mathematical expression, which afterwards, taken in brackets as a whole, is multiplied by zero once more. The intelligent reader has already guessed that both the first and the second zero are themselves fictitious . . . but let us not spread ourselves on this.
If one admits that I did converse with Darya after her death, then . . . really?
The riddle with the ‘swapping of two letters’ I solved long ago, as, probably, anyone reading these lines has solved it too. Even a certain external resemblance can be traced, not to speak of the resemblance of characters . . . Or do I see a resemblance where there is none?
But does such a thing happen? And if it happens, then why should it be my business? And why did Darya Arkadyevna herself attach such great significance to this—curiosity? (By what other word is one to call what happened?)

Ought I to accept the yellow scarf offered to me by the group?

It is not good to make Semyon Grigoryevich wait too long, and sooner or later I will have to decide. And yet I do not seem to have advanced towards the making of this decision by even a millimetre since last Friday.
Let’s admit: I would make a rather poor Prince. I do not discover in myself at all that royal inner freedom of which the first chapter of the Gospel speaks. My whole previous life has passed far from church service in any of its forms. I have neither the necessary skills, nor the appropriate properties of mind, nor even the banal confidence in my own capacities for religious labour.
But . . . what if I try? And we will begin not with prayers, but, for instance, with a joint reading of the Apology of Socrates. For such a comparatively uncomplicated matter, I might perhaps still be of use? And there, having taken a step, perhaps I will see where to put my foot next.
Yes, about a place for the meetings of the group there is as yet no clarity at all. The house and the dacha plot of Darya Arkadyevna will, most likely, be inherited by her cousin; the chances that an Orthodox matushka will cede the house to those whom she considers cultists are vanishingly small. The only thing she will probably agree to give us is the portraits of the ‘sisters’ from the ‘chamber’. But the world has not come to an end at this house.
Suppose a completely useless teacher comes out of me, worse still—a preacher of falsehood, a ‘poisoned well’. And what does The Gospel of the Little Prince say about this?
Its answer is simple. ‘Having drunk poisoned water, we die. But without water too we die.’
What obvious and what terrible words!
Why, however, should I at all believe the composition of a man I do not know, why am I obliged to consider it, written in an idle moment, a doctrinal text?
And to this last question I have, strangely enough, an answer, and a very simple one.
Because Darya Arkadyevna considered it to be so.

 
Post Scriptum

My novel should, rightly, reasonably, appropriately have been finished by the previous fragment. But to this fragment a postscript is unexpectedly added. Today, on the longest day of the year, Karolina, from whom I had already ceased to expect anything to be heard, wrote me a letter. I suppose the novel—if it ever comes into the world—will exist in two versions: for the general public and for close people. Only the latter will be able to read Karolina’s letter, which, for all its personal character, is also part of this story.

Oleg Valeryevich, good morning!
I call you by your name and patronymic, and not ‘Uncle Oleg’, because what sort of niece am I to you? And I am not a child, to use a ‘childish’ address. And not a disciple either, for you yourself did not wish to be my teacher: I take back my request. It seems you were quite satisfied to be an ‘older comrade’ to me. But now I do not like even that very successful definition. And why, will become clear later.
Forgive me for disappearing for ten days. (Do you still want to see me? I am somehow too self-assured.) I have some sort of excuse, though a worthless one: at first I could not write to you for a long time, and then for a long time I did not dare.
I really was very bad for several days in a row. I even ran a temperature and did not go out. My parents were anxious exactly to the extent that parents are obliged to be anxious. Thank you to them for that.
No, it’s not about the observation of another’s death (I am still angry with you for thinking that I am a hothouse plant). Last Monday I observed, besides death, both human nobility of spirit—including yours—and baseness, and moreover a proud baseness, a baseness with a banner of dignity, of concern for another, even of religion . . .
The world is completely merciless. With my mind I knew this before, but my knowledge was the ordinary playfulness of an adolescent who flirts with quotations from the Koran, who likes to wrap herself in other people’s clothes that do not fit and in other people’s words. Now I have seen it with my whole heart. Fortunately, in this world there are still rare sources of warmth. You are such a source for me.
Yesterday—already today—Darya Arkadyevna visited me in a dream, and she revealed to me . . . What exactly, I will not say. Either she revealed the same thing to you, and then you already know, or it did not happen, and then you will not believe me anyway.
What she told me explains a great deal. Do you remember my funny remark about the president during our first walk? ‘Here, in Russia, one can die, be born again, and he will still be ruling.’ How accurate . . .
Your ‘debt’ to me has been paid. Darya Arkadyevna asked me to convey to you precisely this. What follows is for me to decide. If only I knew what I really want . . .
I have grown up very much in these one and a half weeks—by about two years, probably. (Outwardly I am quite the same, and it is even funny to look at myself in the mirror. A girl and nothing but a girl!) The feminine part of my soul has grown up too.
I must tell you something about yourself, for otherwise no one will ever tell you.
There is one astonishing trait in you. Literally from the first minutes of acquaintance, you begin to convince everyone and anyone that you are the most ordinary person in the world. As if your work were boring, your life grey, your education so-so, and in general you do not pluck stars from the sky.
Only your eyes are grey. Nothing, nothing, nothing confirms your words. My dear, good, wonderful man . . .
Enough, not a word more. I have not confessed anything, but all the same I burn with shame when I think that my parents might see this letter. (You will not show it to them, you will not do such a mean thing?) Yes, a girl ought to be bashful. For the first time I like to see myself as a girl.
And now we move to the most important question, the one for the sake of which everything was set going. Only when I had written half of it did I understand what I am writing for.
I am only sixteen. Until my coming of age there are a year and a half. A heap of things may happen in a year and a half, so that my question may turn out to be inopportune.
But if in a year and a half nothing terrible happens, then—
(my heart is pounding as I write all this, and I do not know how to quieten it; can it really be that at sixteen one should already be taking medicine? is it not a bit early?)
—will you wait for me?

The End