When a person is born he is weak and flexible. Nikolay Leskovskomoroh pamphalon

Weakness is great, strength is negligible. When a man is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is soft and tender, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are the companions of death. Flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not win.

Chapter first

During the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great, there lived in Constantinople a noble man, "a patrician and eparch", by the name of Hermias. He was rich, noble and distinguished; had a direct and honest character; he loved the truth and hated pretense, and this did not at all match the time in which he lived.

At that distant time in Byzantium, or in present-day Constantinople, and in the whole kingdom of Byzantium, there were many disputes about faith and piety, and behind these disputes passions flared up among people, strife and quarrels arose, and from this it turned out that although everyone cared about piety but in reality there was neither peace nor piety. On the contrary, in the lower people then there were many of the worst vices, about which it is a shame to speak, and in the higher persons universal terrible hypocrisy. Everyone pretended to be God-fearing, while they themselves lived in a completely un-Christian way: everyone held a grudge, hated each other, and had no compassion for the lower, poor people; themselves drowned in luxury and were not in the least ashamed of the fact that the common people at that very time were tormented by painful needs. The impoverished were taken into bondage or slavery, and it often happened that poor people even starved to death at the very doors of the feasting nobles. At the same time, commoners knew that eminent people themselves were constantly at enmity with each other and often destroyed each other. They not only slandered one another to the king, but even poisoned each other with poisons at formal feasts or in own houses, through bribing cooks and other henchmen.

As from above, so from below, the whole society was filled with corruption.

Chapter Two

The mentioned Hermias had a soul peaceful, and besides, he strengthened her in love for people, as Christ commanded in the Gospel. Hermias wanted to see real piety, and not feigned piety, which does not benefit anyone, but serves only for magnification and deception. Hermias said: if you believe that the Gospel is divine and reveals how to live in order to destroy evil in the world, then you must do everything as it is shown in the Gospel, and not in such a way as to consider it good and right, but start it yourself contrary to it. It’s quite another: to read “forgive us our debts, as we leave them too,” and instead leave nothing to anyone, but for every offense to be angry and pester debts from your neighbor, sparing neither his strength nor his stomach.

For this, all the other nobles began to joke and laugh at Hermias; they said to him: “It’s true that you want everyone to become beggars and stand naked and throw each other’s shirt over. This is not possible in the state." He answered: "I'm not talking about the state, but only about how to live according to the teachings of Christ, which you all call divine." And they answered: “You never know what is good, but impossible!” And they argued, and then they began to put him before the king, as if he had become stupid and was not fit in his place.

Hermias began to notice this and began to think: how difficult it really is to remain in honor and lead a life according to Christ's teaching?

And as soon as Hermias began to delve deeper into this, it began to seem to him that it was even impossible to combine it completely together, but you had to choose one of the two: either leave Christ's teaching, or leave nobility, because together they did not converge at all, but if you bring them together by force for an hour, they will not get along for long and will again disperse further than before. “One demon will leave and return again, and bring seven more with him.” And looking from the other side, Hermias also thought that if he began to denounce everyone and argue with everyone, then he would go into the cold for everyone, and other nobles would then slander him before the king, call him a traitor to the state and destroy him.

“I will please some,” he thinks, “I will not please others: if I go with the cunning, I will darken my soul, and if I become simple, then I will not help them, but I will make trouble for myself. They will present me as a malicious person who sows unrest, but I can not endure slander, but I will begin to justify myself, and then my soul will go wild, and I will begin to accuse my accusers and become as evil as they are. No, don't let it be. I do not want to shame or reproach anyone, because all this is contrary to my soul; but it’s better that I put an end to this completely: I’ll go to the king and beg him to allow me to lay down all power and live my life peacefully somewhere as a simple person.

Chapter Three

As Hermias conceived, so he did according to his reasoning. He did not complain to Tsar Theodosius about anything and did not accuse anyone before him, but only asked to be dismissed from his affairs. The king persuaded Hermias to remain in office, but then he let him go. Hermias received a complete resignation (“put aside all power from yourself”). And at the same time, the wife of Ermia died, and the former nobleman, left alone, began to reason differently:

“Is this not an indication to me from above? Ermi thought. - The Tsar let me go from official cares, and the Lord allowed me from marriage. My wife is dead, and I don't have anyone in my family for whom I would have to work on my estates. Now I can go faster and further towards the goal of the gospel. What do I need wealth? There are always inevitable worries with him, and although I have stepped aside from official affairs, however, wealth will force me to take care of him and again drag me into such matters that are not suitable for someone who wants to be a disciple of Christ.

And Hermias had a lot of wealth (“because he had a lot of riches”) - he had houses, and villages, and slaves, and all kinds of jewelry.

Hermias set free all his slaves, and sold all the rest of the "poly-substantial wealth" and divided the money among needy poor people.

He did so because he wanted to “be perfect”, and to those who wish to achieve perfection, Christ briefly and clearly indicated one way: “Give everything you have and follow me.”

Hermias fulfilled all this exactly, so that he did not even leave a little for himself, and was glad that it did not seem to him at all pitiful and difficult. Only the beginning was expensive to do, and then it became pleasant to distribute everything yourself, so that nothing confuses and nothing prevents you from going light to highest goal gospel.

Chapter Four

Having freed himself from both power and wealth, Hermias secretly left the capital and went to look for a secluded place for himself, where no one would interfere with him to protect himself in purity and holiness for the passage of a charitable life.

After a long journey, made on foot and barefoot, Hermias came to the distant city of Edessa and, quite unexpectedly for himself, found "a certain pillar" here. It was a high stone rock, and with a crevice, and in the middle of the crevice there was a place as soon as one person could be established.

“Here,” thought Ermiy, “this is a place ready for me.” And immediately he climbed up this pillar along a dilapidated log, which someone had attached to the rock, and pushed the log away. The log rolled far into the abyss and broke, but Hermias remained standing and stood on the pillar for thirty years. During all this time, he prayed to God and wished to forget about the hypocrisy and other evils that he saw and with which he was painfully indignant.

With him, Hermias took only one long twine to the rock, with which he clung when he climbed, and this twine was useful to him.

In the first days, how else did Ermiy forget to remove this twine, a shepherd boy who came here to feed the kids noticed it. The shepherd began to tug at this string, and Ermiy began to call him and said to him:

Bring me some water, I'm very thirsty.

The boy picked up his pumpkin pacifier with water and says:

“Drink and keep the pumpkin for yourself.”

He also gave him a basket with a handful of black tart berries.

Ermiy ate the berries and said:

“God sent me a breadwinner.

And as soon as the boy drove a herd of kids to the village in the evening, he immediately told his mother that he saw an old man on the rock, and Shepherd's mother went to the well and began to tell other women about it, and so people became aware of the new stylite, and people from the villages ran to Hermias and brought him more lentils and beans than he could eat. And so it went on.

Only Hermias lowered a wicker basket and a hollowed pumpkin from above on a long string, and people already put cabbage leaves and dry, not boiled seeds in this basket, and filled his pumpkin with water. And the former Byzantine nobleman and rich man Hermias ate this for thirty years. He did not eat bread or anything cooked on fire, and he forgot the taste of boiled food. According to the then concepts, they found that it was pleasant and pleasing to God. Ermiy did not regret his distributed wealth and did not even think about it. He had no conversations with anyone and seemed strict and stern, imitating his Elijah in silence.

The villagers considered Hermias capable of performing miracles. He didn't tell them that, but they believed it. The sick came, stood in its shadow, which the sun cast from the pillar to the ground, and departed, finding that they felt relieved. And he kept silent, fixing his mind on prayer or reciting from memory three million verses by Origen and two hundred and fifty thousand verses by Gregory, Pierius and Stephen.

So Hermias spent his days, and in the evening, when the scorching heat fell off and the coolness refreshed Hermias's face, he, having finished his prayers and thoughts about God, sometimes thought about people. He pondered how, during these thirty years, evil in the world must have multiplied, and how, under the cover of hypocrisy and empty sanctity, replacing the real teaching with their inventions, now all true virtue has probably dried up in people and only form without content remains.

The impressions made by the pilgrim from the hypocritical capital he left were so unfavorable that he despaired for the whole world and did not notice that through this despair he humiliated both the plan and purpose of creation and considered himself alone to be the most perfect.

He repeats Origen by heart, and he himself thinks: “Well, so be it - let the earthly world stand for eternity, and people in it, like schoolchildren at school, prepare to appear in eternity and there show their successes in the local school. But what success will they show when they live selfishly and evilly, and do not learn anything from Christ, and do not forget their pagan habits? Won't eternity be wasted?" Let Origen console him that the creator could not have fallen into error, having seen “like all good is green”, if it is really good for nothing, but Hermias still thinks that “the whole world lies in evil”, and his mind in vain he tries to see clearly: “what are those who please God and improve eternity?”

In no way can Hermias imagine those who would be worthy of eternity, they all seem to him thin, all have come into life with an evil inclination, but here, living on earth, they have spoiled even worse.

And the stylite finally took despair that eternity would be empty, because there were no people worthy to go into it.

Chapter Five

And then one day, when, with the falling cover of night, the stylite “strongly moved with the thought to take away: the katsy are those who please God,” he bowed his head to the edge of the crevice of his rock, and an unusual thing happened to him: a quiet, even breath of air blew over him, and with that the following words came to his ear:

- In vain, Hermias, you grieve and are horrified: there are dancers who please God well and are inscribed in the book of eternal life.

“Lord, if I have found mercy in your eyes, then let me see at least one such, and then my spirit will rest for all earthly creation.

And subtle breathing again breathes into the ear of the old man:

“To do this, you need to forget about those whom you knew, and get off the pillar and look at the man Pamphalon.

With this, his breath dropped, and the elder raised himself and thought: did he really hear this, or was it inspired by a dream? And now the cold night passes again, the hot day passes, and new twilight sets in, and again Hermias bows his head and hears:

- Go down, Hermias, to the ground, you need to go look at Pamphalon.

“Who is he, this Pamphalon?”

“But he is one of those that you want to see.”

“And where does this Pamphalon live?”

He lives in Damascus.

Hermias again started up and again was not sure that he heard this not in a dream. And then he decided in his mind to try this matter again, up to three times, and if the same intelligible speech about Pamphalon comes to him for the third time, then no longer doubt, but get off the cliff and go to Damascus.

But as soon as he decided to find out in detail: what kind of Pamphalon is this and how to look for him in Damascus.

The sultry day passed again, and with the evening coolness the name of Pamphalon sounded again in the spirit of the coldness of the tonka.

“Why are you delaying, old man, why don’t you get down to earth and go to Damascus to watch Pamphalon?” And the old man replies:

How can I go and look for a person unknown to me?

The person has been named to you.

- A man was named Pamphalon for me, but in such a great city as Damascus, is there only Pamphalon? Which one should I ask?

And in the spirit of coldness, the tonka sounds again:

“That's none of your concern. You just get down as soon as possible and go to Damascus, and there everyone already knows this Pamphalon, whom you need. Ask the first person you meet, everyone will show it to you. He is known to everyone.

When a person is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. Callousness and strength are companions of death, flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being.

directed by Andrey Tarkovsky

screenplay by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Wife. After all, you were going to work! You were promised a normal human job!

Stalker(eating). I'll be back soon.

Wife. You will go back to prison! Only now they will give you not five years, but ten! And you will not have anything in these ten years! No Zone, and... nothing! And I ... in these ten years I will die! (Crying.)

Stalker. God prison! Yes, I have prison everywhere. Let it go!

Professor. And what are you writing about?

Writer. Oh, readers.

Professor. Well, obviously, it’s not worth writing about anything else ...

Writer. Well, of course. It's not worth writing at all. About nothing. What are you... a chemist?

Professor. More like a physicist.

Writer. Also probably boring. The search for truth. She hides, and you look for her everywhere, dig here, then there. They dug in one place - yeah, the nucleus consists of protons! They dug in another - beauty: a triangle a be tse equal to triangle a-prim be-prim tse-prim. But I have another matter. I am digging up this very truth, and at that time something is being done with it, that I was digging out the truth, but I dug up a bunch, sorry ... I won’t say what.

Stalker.(...) This is the Zone. It may even seem that she is capricious, but at every moment she is what we made her ... with our condition. (...) Everything that happens here does not depend on the Zone, but on us!

A rumbling and gurgling sound is heard. The water in the sewer well rises in a column, boils, gradually calms down. At this time, the Stalker's voice is off-screen.

Stalker. May that which is intended be fulfilled. Let them believe. And let them laugh at their passions; for what they call passion is not really soul energy, but only friction between the soul and the outer world. And most importantly, let them believe in themselves and become helpless like children, because weakness is great, and strength is negligible ...

The stalker makes his way along the ledge of the wall - apparently, the dam. His internal monologue continues.

Stalker. When a person is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is tender and pliable, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are companions of death, flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not win. (Goes down into the building, speaks aloud.) Come here! (The Writer and the Professor appear.) We are going very well. Soon there will be a “dry tunnel”, and it will be easier there.

Writer. Look, don't jinx it.

Stalker(whispers). On the same day, two ... of them ... went to a village sixty stadia distant ... (inaudible) called ... (inaudible) and talked among themselves about all these events, and when they talked and reasoned among themselves ... (inaudible) and Himself, approaching, went with them, but their eyes were held back (The Writer wakes up, looks at the Stalker) ... so that they did not recognize Him. He said what it is that you (sighs) are all discussing among yourselves and why you are sad. One of them named....

The professor lies with open eyes and carefully looks at the Stalker.

Stalker. Woke up? (...)

The writer lies in a puddle. He gets up with difficulty, water pours from him, sits on the edge of the well, coughs. He gets up, takes a stone and throws it into the well. (Buzzing sound) Sitting on the edge of the well.

Writer. Here's another... experiment. Experiments, facts, the ultimate truth. Yes, there are no facts at all, and even more so here. Here everything is invented by someone. All this is someone's idiotic invention. Don't you really feel?.. And you, of course, desperately need to know whose. But why? What is the use of your knowledge? Whose conscience will hurt them? My? I have no conscience. I only have nerves. (...) After all, I used to think that someone becomes better from my books. No one needs me! I will die, and in two days they will forget me and start eating someone else. After all, I thought to remake them, but they remade me! They don't want to know! They just chew!

Professor. Can you imagine what will happen when everyone believes in this very Room? and when they all rush here? But it's a matter of time! If not today, then tomorrow! And not tens, but thousands! All these failed emperors, grand inquisitors, Fuhrers of all stripes. These benefactors of the human race! And not for money, not for inspiration, but to remake the world!

Stalker. Not! I don't take them here! I understand!

Professor. What can you understand, you are a funny person! Then you are not alone in the world Stalker! Yes, none of the stalkers knows what they come here with and what those you lead leave here with. And the number of unmotivated crimes is growing! Is this your job?

Writer. Come on, come on, come on! An individual person cannot have such hatred or, let's say, such love ... that would extend to all of humanity! Well, money, woman, well, there is revenge, so that the boss is run over by a car. Unconscious compassion is not yet able to be realized. WELL, as an ordinary instinctive desire.

The Stalker, who had previously looked at the Writer with interest, stands up.

Stalker. Well no. Can there be happiness at the expense of the unhappiness of others?

A dog lies on the floor and whines. In the corner against the wall are two hugging skeletons. Shutters open and close.

(...)

Stalker. I know you will be angry... But all the same, I must tell you... Here we are... standing on the threshold... This is the most important point... in your life, you should know that... here your most cherished desire will be fulfilled. The most sincere! The most suffered! And most importantly ... most importantly ... believe! Well, now go. Who wants first? Maybe you? (To the writer.)

Writer. I? No I do not want.

The professor collects the bomb.

Professor. We put it together... with friends. No one, as you can see, this place will not bring any happiness. And if it falls into bad hands... (...) As long as this ulcer is open here for every bastard... no sleep, no rest.

Stalker. After all, I bring here the same as me, the unfortunate, tortured. They... They have nothing else to hope for! But I can! See, I can help them! Nobody can help them. And I am a nit (shouts), I am a nit - I can! I'm ready to cry with happiness that I can help them. That's all! And I don't want anything else (Cries.)

Writer. Nothing you Leather stocking, Didn't understand. It was not greed that overcame the porcupine. Yes, he crawled on his knees through this puddle, begging for his brother. And he got a lot of money, and could not get anything else. Because Porcupine - porcupine! And conscience, mental anguish - it's all invented, from the head. He understood all this and hanged himself. I won't go to your room! I don’t want to pour the rubbish that I have accumulated on anyone’s head. I'd rather drink quietly and peacefully in my writer's mansion. And then... er... Where did you get the idea that this miracle actually exists?

Stalker. Quiet as ... Do you hear? (Sighs.)

Stalker(sighs). If you only knew how tired I am! God only knows! They also call themselves intellectuals. These writers! Scientists!

Wife. Take it easy!

Stalker. They don't believe in anything! They have ... this organ, which they believe, has atrophied!

Wife. Take it easy!

Stalker. For uselessness!

(...)

Stalker. My God, what kind of people...

Wife. Calm down... Calm down... They're not to blame... You should feel sorry for them, but you're angry.

Stalker. You saw them, their eyes are empty.

His wife gives him medicine, strokes him, wipes his face with a handkerchief. He cries, turns away.

Stalker. They think every minute about how not to sell too cheap, to sell themselves at a higher price! So that they are all paid, each mental movement! They know that they were not born in vain! That they are "called"! They only live once! Can they really believe in anything?

Wife. Calm down, don't... Try to sleep, huh?.. Sleep...

Stalker. And nobody believes. Not only these two. Nobody! Who should I take there? Oh, Lord... And the worst thing... is that no one needs it. And no one needs this Room. And all my efforts are for nothing!

Wife. Well, why are you like that. No need.

Stalker. I won't go there with anyone else.

Wife(pitifully). Well... Well, do you want me to go with you? There? Want?

Stalker. No... It's not possible...

Wife. Why?

Stalker. No, no ... What if you, too, nothing ... will not work.

The wife moves away from him, sits down on a chair, takes out cigarettes. Then he goes to the window, sits down on the windowsill, lights a cigarette and speaks, addressing the viewer.

Wife.... I didn't even argue. I knew all this myself: what a suicide bomber is, and what an eternal prisoner is, and about children ... But what could I do? I was sure that I would be fine with him. I knew that there would be a lot of grief, but only bitter happiness is better than ... a gray, dull life. (Sobs, smiles.) Or maybe I came up with all this later. And then he just came up to me and said: “Come with me,” and I went. And never regretted it later. Never. And there was a lot of grief, and it was scary, and it was a shame. But I never regretted and never envied anyone. Just such a fate, such a life, such we are. And if there were no grief in our life, then it would not be better, it would be worse. Because then ... there would be no happiness either, and there would be no hope. Here.

The rushing train rumbles. Glass rattles. The music is getting louder, finally, you can hear that this is an ode to "To Joy." Blackout. Glass rattling.

The first Pamphalon recovered.

Noticing that Hermias did not have any burden on him, Pamphalon asked him in bewilderment:

Where is your koshnitsa and pumpkin?

There is nothing with me,” answered the hermit.

Well, thank God that I have something to treat you today.

I don’t need anything,” the elder interrupted, “I didn’t come for a treat. I need to know how you please god?

What?

How do you please God?

What are you, what are you, old man! What a pleasure to God from me! Yeah, I can't even think about it.

Why can't you think? Everyone should think about his salvation. Nothing can be as precious to a person as his salvation. And salvation is impossible without pleasing God.

Pamphalon listened to him, smiled and answered:

Oh father, father! If you knew how funny it is for me to listen to you. It can be seen that you really have been out of the world for a long time.

Yes, I've been out of the world for a long time; I have not been among people for thirty years, but still, what I say is true and in accordance with faith.

And I, - answered Pamphalon, - I do not argue with you, but I tell you that I am a man of a very fickle life, I am a buffoon in my craft and do not think about piety, but I jump, spin, play, splash my hands, blink my eyes, twist my legs and I shake my head to get something for my laughing stock. What pleasing God can I think of in such a life!

Why don't you leave this life and start leading a better one?

Ah, dear friend, I have already tried it.

And what?

Failed.

Try again.

No, there is nothing to try now.

Because these days I have missed such an opportunity to correct my life, which is already better and cannot be.

Why do you know? In your opinion it cannot be, but with God everything is possible.

No, you're talking about it with me, please don't talk about it, because I don't even want to tempt God anymore if I don't know how to use his favors. I left myself without salvation, and so be it.

So are you desperate?

No, I'm not desperate, but I'm carefree and cheerful person, and talking to me about faith ... just inopportunely.

Hermias shook his head and said:

What, however, is your faith, cheerful carefree man?

I believe that I myself will not be able to make anything good out of myself, and if the one who created me himself makes something better out of me in time, well, that’s his business. He can surprise everyone.

Why don't you take care of yourself?

Once.

How is it no time?

Yes, I live in a bustle, and when I deliberately get ready to save myself, then melancholy attacks me, and instead of good, it comes out even worse.

You are talking nonsense.

No, its true. When I reflect, then from my weak character I will become anxious and again I will destroy everything myself and I will return to my buffoon level.

Well, then you're a lost man.

It may very well be.

And I think that you are not at all the Pamphalon that I need.

I can’t answer that for you,” answered the buffoon, “but it only seems to me that at this hour, when I’m so happy that I can serve your wanderer’s need, now, perhaps, I’m just the Pamphalon that you need, and what you need next, we'll find out tomorrow. Now I'll wash your feet, and you eat what I have, and go to bed, and I'll go buffoon.

I need your conversations.

Conversations! exclaimed Pamphalon again.

Yes, I need your conversations, I have come for them and will not depart from you.

Pamphalon looked at the old man, touched his blue topknot, and then suddenly burst out laughing.

What is it to you, merry fellow, so funny in my words? Ermi asked.

And Pamphalon replied:

Forgive me my foolishness. I laughed out of habit. You want not to leave me, but I thought that it would be good for me to take you and take you around the city with me. It would be to my advantage to parade you around Damascus. Everyone would have been going to look at you, but I am ashamed that I thought so of you, and let it be ashamed for you to laugh at me.

I'm not laughing at anyone, Pamphalon.

So why do you say that you want conversations from me for your teaching? What teachings can I give you, a wretched buffoon, to you, a man who had the power to talk about God and people in the holy silence of the desert? The Lord did not completely deprive me of his most holy gift - reason, and I know the difference between me and that battle. Do not insult me, old man, let me wash your feet and rest on my bed.

Well, - said Ermiy, - you are the master in your house and do what you want.

Pamphalon brought a tub of fresh water and, having washed the guest's feet, gave him something to eat, and then put him to bed and said:

Tomorrow we will talk to you. And now I’ll ask you one thing: don’t be alarmed if one of the people who spree starts knocking on my door or throwing something at the wall. It means nothing else, as idlers call me to amuse them.

And you get up and leave?

Yes, I go anytime.

And do you come in everywhere?

Of course, everywhere: I’m a buffoon and I can’t make out places.

Poor Pamphalon!

How about, my father! Wise men and philosophers do not demand my skill, but idlers demand it. I go to the squares, I stand at the stadiums, I spin at feasts, I go to country groves where young rich people walk, and most of all at night I go to the houses of cheerful hetairas ...

At last word Hermias almost burst into tears and exclaimed even more pitifully:

Poor Pamphalon!

What to do, - answered the buffoon, - I really am very poor. After all, I am the son of sin, and as I was conceived in sin, so I grew up with sinners. I have not been taught anything else but buffoonery, and I had to live in the world because my mother, who conceived and gave birth to me, lived here in sin. I could not bear that my mother stretched out her hand to a stranger for bread, and fed her with my buffoonery.

Where is your mother now?

I believe she is with God. She died on the same bed where you lie now.

Are you loved in Damascus?

I don’t know what the word “love” is, but they probably love me, and throw money at me for my fun, and treat me at their tables. I drink expensive wine at someone else's expense and pay for it with my jokes.

Do you drink wine?

Oh yes, that I drink wine and love to drink it, there is no doubt about that. Yes, without this it is impossible for a person who keeps a cheerful company.

Who taught you to this company?

Chance, or better to tell you, I don't know how to explain it to your piety. My mother was cheerful and beautiful in her youth. My father was a noble man. He abandoned me, but no one took me from other sedate people, they took me the same as me, a buffoon and beat and broke me a lot, but still thanks to him - he taught me his business, and now no one will throw me better up the rings so that they converge on the fly; no one clicks his tongue like that, makes faces, claps his hands, and shakes his feet, and shakes his head like that.

And you haven't gotten sick of this craft yet?

No, I often don’t like it, especially when I see how nobles spend their time with hetaeras, who should think about the happiness of the people, and when in funny houses they bring forth a flourishing youth, but I was brought up in this, and by this alone I know how to earn my own bread.

Poor, poor Pamphalon! Look, now your head has turned white, and you are still clapping your hands, and mincing your feet, and shaking your head at the dead harlots. You yourself will die with them.

And Pamphalon replied:

Do not feel sorry for me that I am twisting my legs and spinning at the getters. Heteras are sinners, but they are compassionate towards us, weak people. When their guests get drunk, they themselves go and collect donations for us from revelers, and sometimes even ask for us with a surplus and with kindness.

And noticing that Hermias had turned away, Pamphalon touched him affectionately on the shoulder and said reassuringly:

Believe me, venerable old man, that what is alive always remains alive, and a beautiful heart often beats in a hetaera's chest. And it is sad for us to be at the feasts of rich gentlemen. That's where bad people often meet; they are proud, arrogant and want fun, but they do not tolerate free laughter and jokes. There they demand what human nature is ashamed of, there they threaten with blows and wounds, there they pinch my bird of various feathers, there they blow and spit in the nose of my dog ​​Akra. There, all insults to the lower ones are imputed to nothing, and in the morning ... they go to pray for the sake of appearance.

Oh grief! oh grief! - whispered Hermias, - I see that he is even quite far from understanding what he is mired in, but his mind and his nature, perhaps, are kind ... That's why I, rightly, for this reason I was sent to him, so that take his gifted soul to another path.

And he said to him with inspiration:

Quit your nasty trade, Pamphalon.

And he answered calmly:

I'd love to, but I can't.

Say a verb to God, and he will help you.

Verb! .. why do you read in my soul what I want to forget!

Aha! Have you already made a vow and broken it again?

Yes, you guessed it: I did this bad deed - I made a vow.

Why do you call a vow a bad thing?

Because Christians are forbidden to swear and promise, and I, whatever I am, is still a Christian, and, however, I made a vow and broke it. And now I know that how can a weak person make a vow to the almighty, who has provided what he should be, and crushes him like a potter crushes clay on a wheel? Yes, know, old man, know that I had the opportunity to quit buffoonery and did not quit.

And why didn't you quit?

What is your answer: all you "could not"! Why could you and couldn't?

Yes, and could and could not, because ... I'm careless - I can't think about my soul when there is someone who needs help.

The elder raised himself on the couch and, fixing his eyes on the buffoon, exclaimed:

What you said?! You don't think it's worth ruining your soul for endless ages of ages, just to do something in this fast life for another! Do you have any idea about the raging flames of hell and the depth of eternal night?

The buffoon chuckled and said:

No, I don't know anything about it. And how can I know about life of the dead when I don't even know everything about the living? Do you know about tartar, old man?

Of course!

And meanwhile, I see, and you do not know about many things that are on earth. It's strange to me. I tell you that I am a worthless person, but you do not believe me. And I won't believe you what you know about the dead.

Unhappy! do you even have an idea about the deity itself?

I have only very small ideas, but I do not expect myself to be greatly condemned, because I did not grow up in a noble family, I did not listen to the lessons of the scholastics in Byzantium.

God can be known and served without the science of the scholastics.

I agree with you and have always said this in my mind with God: you are the creator, and I am a creature - I can’t understand you, you put me in this leather robe for some reason and threw me here on the ground to work, I drag myself on the ground, crawl, work . I would like to know: why is it all so intricately created, but I don’t want to be like a lazy slave to talk about you with everyone. I will simply be submissive to you and will not find out what you think, but I will simply take and fulfill what your finger has inscribed in my heart! And if I do something bad, forgive me, because it was you who created me with a pitiful heart. I live with him.

And you hope to be justified on this!

Ah, I don't hope for anything, but I'm just not afraid of anything.

How! Are you not afraid of God?

Pamphalon shrugged his shoulders and replied:

Really, I'm not afraid: I love him.

Better tremble!

What for? Do you tremble?

fluttered.

And are you tired now?

I'm not the same as I used to be.

You must have gotten better.

Don't know.

You said it well. The one who looks from the outside knows, and not the one who does his job. Whoever does it is not visible to himself.

Have you ever felt good?

Pamphalon was silent.

I beg you, - Hermias repeated, - tell me, have you ever felt good?

Yes, - answered the buffoon, - I felt ...

And when was it?

Imagine, it was exactly at the very hour when I removed myself from him ...

God! what does this idiot say?

I'm telling the absolute truth.

But what and how did you alienate yourself from God?

I did it in one breath.

Tell me what have you done?

Pamphalon wanted to answer what had happened to him, but at that very moment the mat with which the door was hung was thrown back by two young, swarthy female hands in the wrists, and two voiced female voices they spoke immediately:

Pamphalon, ridiculous Pamphalon! hurry up and come with us. We ran after you in the dark from our hetaera ... Hurry up, we have a grotto and alleys of rich guests from Corinth. Take with you the rings and the strings and the Acre and the bird. Tonight you can earn a lot for your ludicrousness, and at least make up for your great loss a little.

Hermias looked at these women, and their glossy warm skin, their half-dissolved mouths and clouded eyes with a look turned into space, the complete absence of thought on their faces and the smell of their passionate body mistaken him. It seemed to the hermit that he even heard the dull roar of blood in their veins, and in the distance the clatter of hooves, and sniffling, and the smell of Silenus's sharp sweat.

Ermiy trembled with fear, turned to the wall and covered his head with a mat.

And Pamphalon said quietly, leaning towards him:

You see, is it time for me to think about lofty things! - and, immediately changing his tone to loud and cheerful, he answered the women:

Now, now I'm coming to you, my Nile snakes.

Pamphalon whistled his Acre, took the pole on which his motley bird sat in a hoop, and, taking his other buffoon shells, left, extinguishing the lamp. Hermias was left alone in an empty dwelling.

* Stalker: ...Let that which is planned be fulfilled. Let them believe. And let them laugh at their passions. After all, what they call passion is not really soul energy, but only friction between the soul and the outside world. And most importantly, let them believe in themselves and become helpless, like children. Because weakness is great, and strength is negligible. When a person is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is tender and pliable, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are companions of death, flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not win ...

* Stalker: The Zone is... a very complex system... of traps, or something... and all of them are deadly! I don’t know what happens here in the absence of a person, but as soon as people appear here, everything starts to move here .. Former traps disappear - new ones appear. Safe places become impassable, and the path becomes either simple and easy, or becomes confusing to the point of impossibility! This is the Zone. It may even seem that she is capricious, but at every moment she is what we ourselves made her ... with our condition. I will not hide, there were cases when people had to return halfway, not slurping salty. There were also those who… died at the very threshold of the Room. But everything that happens here does not depend on the Zone, but on us!

* Writer: How do I know what to call what... what I want? And how do I know that I don't really want what I want? Or shall we say that I really don't want what I don't want? These are all some kind of elusive things: as soon as they are named, their meaning disappears, melts, dissolves ... like a jellyfish in the sun. Ever seen? My consciousness wants the victory of vegetarianism all over the world, and my subconscious is languishing bit by bit juicy meat. What do I want?

* Writer: Is that why you think Porcupine hanged himself?
* Stalker: He came to the zone with a mercenary purpose, and ruined his brother in a meat grinder, that's why he hanged himself.
* Writer: I understand that, but why did he hang himself? Why didn't you go to the Zone again, this time not for money, but for your brother? How did you repent?
* Stalker: He wanted, he... I don't know, he hanged himself a few days later
* Writer: After all, here he realized that not just desires, but innermost desires are fulfilled ... Yes, here everything that corresponds to your nature, essence, will come true! About which you have no idea, but it will take and manifest itself ... It was not greed that defeated the porcupine. Yes, he was crawling on his knees at this puddle, begging for his brother. And he got a lot of money. And I couldn't get anything else. Because Porcupine - Porcupine. And quarrels, mental anguish - it's all invented, from the head.

* Writer: ...Here's another experiment. Experiments, facts, the ultimate truth. And there are no facts at all, and even more so here. Here everything is invented by someone. All this is someone's idiotic invention, don't you feel it? And you, of course, desperately need to know whose. And why? What is the use of your knowledge? Whose conscience will hurt them? My? I have no conscience, I have only nerves: some bastard scolds - a wound, another bastard praises - another wound. If you invest your soul, if you invest your heart, they will devour both the soul and the heart. You take out the abomination from the soul - they eat the abomination! They are all literate without exception, they all have sensory starvation, and they all swirl around: journalists, editors, critics, some kind of continuous women. And everyone demands: "Come on! Come on!" What the hell am I a writer if I hate to write! If for me it's torture, a painful, shameful occupation, something like squeezing hemorrhoids. After all, I used to think that from my books someone becomes better! Yes, no one needs me, I will die, and in two days they will forget me and start eating someone else. After all, I thought to remake them, but they remade me! In your own image and likeness! Previously, the future was only a continuation of the present, and all the changes loomed somewhere over the horizon. And now the future has merged with the present! Are they ready for this?! They do not want to know anything, they only eat! ..

* Stalker: You saw that their eyes are empty. After all, they think every minute about how not to sell too cheap. To sell yourself more. To pay for everything, every spiritual movement. They know that they were not born in vain, that they are called. After all, they only live once. Can they really believe in anything? Nobody believes, not just these two. Nobody. Who should I take there?

P.s. When a person is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is tender and flexible, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are companions of death, flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not win. (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, § 76)

What never ceases to amaze me is the rigidity and, in my opinion, even the cruelty of the priesthood in matters that seem to me not even secondary, but simply unimportant. Fathers may not give communion to a child if he was sitting on the Gospel, came in shorts, or the girl came without a headscarf. A person may not be admitted to Confession if he has not fasted in a certain way for a certain number of days. I regularly ask people at Confession whether they are fasting, but it would never occur to me to ask them for gastronomic details and even more so to decide on the basis of these details the question of a person’s readiness to participate in the Sacraments. Climbing into someone else's post seems to me as unethical as climbing into someone else's bed with your questions, which, by the way, is also not uncommon. I allowed one parishioner to enter the temple after work in trousers, because. she works almost all the time and has to wear trousers at work, but she walks past the church to work and is afraid to go in. In short, she burst into tears and began to kiss my hands, saying that none of the priests had ever been so kind to her. I tried to analyze the priests who live by these prohibitions, but I can’t understand what unites them. Among them are old and young, educated and uneducated, long-serving and recently ordained. It seems to me that this is a crookedly read Gospel plus something in the psyche ...

How difficult it is to communicate with a person with a "formed worldview." Absolute closeness to other experience. For some reason, there are especially many of these among the Orthodox. Apparently they confused the dogmatic correctness of the Church with their own infallibility in their views on life. As Schopenhauer wrote: "they take the end of their horizons for the end of the world." Church pride is a disease that leads to the crucifixion of Christ. At least that's what happened in the gospel story.

***
Incomprehensible ancient clothes and the name Jesus, sacred for many centuries, help our consciousness to hide the God-man again far away into heaven, to make the incarnation of God the property of hoary and almost fabulous antiquity. However, Christ wore the normal clothes of the time, as he would now wear jeans and a T-shirt or trousers and a pullover. And the name Jesus is also common, like the usual Petya, Kolya or Boris Ivanovich. He ate, drank and could appreciate good joke without ceasing to control the universe. But for such a Christ, we are too afraid, and suddenly be defiled by our humanity. It is more reliable to allocate a sacred "zone" to Him, let him be there. The Monophysite temptation is so close to our hearts...

And be to her the appearance of an angel ...
A familiar father said:
One of our parishioners became pregnant. Shortly thereafter, she had a dream of an angel who said that she would give birth to a boy and that he should be named Michael. There is no need to explain that she immediately put her husband, all her relatives on the ears, “got sick” of all the priests, etc. What was going on in her head and in her soul all this time only she knows. I think you already guessed about the final :) A girl was born ...

About Mary of Egypt
She was saved. And not just saved, but achieved holiness. The pinnacle of holiness. Without regular confessions and communion, without church services, without the New Testament, without the Psalter, akathists and the prayer book "Shield of the Orthodox Woman", in short, without everything without which it seems unthinkable for us to be saved. There was only God and her longing for him. What am I talking about? About the fact that if we subtract from us everything that we call piety and that we often manage to take credit for ourselves, then what will be in the dry residue? Will we have enough for at least a 10-minute live conversation with God at the end of which it will not become boring? Is not often our "piety," right in its place, a smokescreen hiding a gaping emptiness in a personal relationship with God?

Stalker
For many years I have wanted to learn from the feast of the Nativity of Christ, that weakness in which "the power of God is perfected." I don’t know how anyone, but it is the complete defenselessness of the Born that will shock me in the upcoming holiday. And yesterday I was rewatching "Stalker" and was struck by the words of the protagonist, right in tune with my thoughts before the holiday: "When a person is born, he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is gentle and flexible, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are companions of death, flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what is hardened will not win." Words worthy of the holy fathers. There will be something to say at the sermon :)

Priest Roman Matyukov,