Swallows Have Arrived (Ласточки прилетели)

Film company Narti Movies

presents

lrlan Khugaev

Arthur Khatagov

Vjacheslav Guriev

in film by Asian Galazov

SWALLOWS HAVE ARRIVED

Divided, I could no longer pray:

It was the Other who wouldn't let me:

The very moment I clasped my hands together in prayer

and fell to my knees to answer a sincere outburst from the heart,

he would run ahead and stand between me and God

and begin to wink at me and make faces.

Or, even worse, grotesquely mimic my every move, glance and intonation,

and often from out of my mouth, open to pray, would run curses.

Good morning, ma.

Good morning.

I started to lie.

Lies became my second,

then my first, and finally my only essence.

At the beginning, when I sinned only rarely,

I lied only to save and appease myself.

Soon the lies became necessary to save those around me, my family;

It seemed that I was doing the only thing I could for my loved ones:

I was sparing their feelings, I was even acting nobly.

Thank you.

Why are you killing yourself, boy?

Stop, mum. Please stop it.

Stop what?

Thank you.

Since I achieved a certain skill and self-dependence in sin,

each new time was the last time.

I believed it sincerely.

But as soon as the last time was over and I came round,

I could no longer see any point in further existence,

if it was never going to happen again.

That's how you live from one time to the next,

enduring every minute of sobriety as an eternity of void and loneliness.

I was already unable to live in reality;

Only a foretaste of just one more time - the last time...

could make me move and think.

How beautiful the Sun is when newly risen

He hurls his morning greetings like an explosion!

Fortunate the one who can lovingly salute

His setting, more glorious than a dream!

I remember! I have seen all, flower, stream, furrow,

Swoon under his gaze like a palpitating heart...

Let us run to the horizon, it's late,

Let us run fast, to catch at least a slanting ray!

But I pursue in vain the sinking god;

Irresistible Night, black, damp, deadly,

Full of shudders, establishes his reign;

The odor of the tomb swims in the shadows

And at the marsh's edge my timid foot

Treads upon slimy snails and unexpected toads.

The hero of the Decadence is a split personality,

severed in two by the experience of the disharmony of the world.

It is no coincidence that

the theme of the double becomes very popular with the Decadents.

Personality, just like the world, is divided in two,

but the division doesn't end here.

Personality, as it were, multiplies,

and this multiplication is really a disintegration of personality

or the "wreckage" as Beaudelaire calls it.

The absence of one single reality

and the simultaneous existence of a myriad of different realities,

the collision of these realities

becomes an unbearable burden for an artist of the Decadence.

How can one survive this multiplicity of worlds?

How is it possible?

If the Romantic hero is a rebel, ready to move mountains,

or a visionary, residing in mystical union with the universe,

then the Decadent hero is clearly a slighter figure,

often an aesthete and a melancholic,

sharp of tongue and malicious of character.

What remains the same is the soul.

The delicate,

frail.

Suffering soul of a poet

in the vulgar environment of the bourgeois world,

deprived of beauty, and therefore, justice.

The beauty of the Decadence is the beauty of fading, of decay;

The cold, dismal beauty of death and non-existence;

The beauty of "The Flowers of Evil",

that's how Beaudelaire called his poetry book.

Does any one have any questions for me?

I asked you last time to read

Edgar Alan Poe's story "The Black Cat".

It's a very short story.

Has anyone read it?

Please raise a hand.

You know what,

the hell with you!

- Hello - Hello.

- Good afternoon. - Good afternoon.

Greetings comrades!

Greetings, greetings! Come on through, please do.

How are you, Tamik?

Not so bad, brother, not so bad. And you?

Alright. Don't, don't, I'm cold.

- Would you like your tea stronger? - No, no, thanks, it's fine.

- You know what surprises me, Murik? - What surprises you?

You have everything here, but you don't have a clock.

He's as good as a clock himself. An hour glass.

How's that?

The sands of time are running out from him.

No, I just get along perfectly well without a clock.

Aren't you late for work?

No, the clock is inside. Everyone has a clock inside.

They forgot to wind mine up.

No, it's just that sometimes it runs fast and sometimes it runs slow.

And sometimes it sticks in one place.

Well, I want to live in harmony with time. You see?

But people these days, the people who populate the earth,

they've all gone mad, they're all chasing time,

they want to catch it up, they want to earn more...

It's chaos! Universal chaos is beginning!

Friends! Stop hurrying everywhere,

bring time to order!

Imagine they just turned all the clocks off?

You're laughing again.

Would you like some more tea?

There's only one way to stop this madness.

How's that?

The whole world must pray to God

that people will stop their obscenity.

Profound, eh?

I'll tell you about obscenity.

We went fishing one time.

Everyone ran about

trying to snap up the best spots.

And I went off with the lake warden.

We cut up some thin strips of meat

and I got out some chilled vodka...

and we sat in the shade and said grace,

and drank and ate, and I cast my line and fell asleep.

No one caught a thing, except me.

When they woke me up, I hauld in my line and...

- A shoal of fish, yeah? - Not a shoal, but there was a fish.

And what did you do with this one fish, I wonder?

There were lots of you weren't there?

- No, I gave it to the... - To the warden?

To the warden? Well, that was the right thing to do...

But, what has that got to do with obscenity?

So, why are we so greedy? Why do we grab all the best spots?

There's no need!

If God gives you something, He gives it to you... or whatever...

You're right there. When God gives, He gives it right into your hands.

And it's this love alone that keeps the whole world together.

And the more a man loses the sense of love,

the more warlike he becomes,

the more he wants to fight, the more he wants to enslave.

Without love, all that's left is obscenity.

That's negative information.

You turn on the television

and every day they tell you that something has burned down...

You can't change it. You mustn't watch it, you see?

- Watch the game! - You've already lost.

- What's his obscenity? - He's a teacher.

He should be an example to...

- Are you playing the game or what? - I've practically won already.

You watch the game.

Pik, what's wrong with you?

Everything must be paid for, eh, Pik?

Shell I open the window?

It's alright. He just needs some hot tea.

Pik, here, drink your tea.

Pour some on his head.

It's alright!

Mate, grandmaster!

- My friend... - Wait, wait!

Oh, God!

Again the black sun has risen over the earth.

I have to live:

I have to walk, talk, smile

and lie, and lie...

The first torture is breakfast.

You eat and you are also lying,

because you don't taste the food

and you try to swallow without chewing,

pretending that human things are not alien to you.

Thanks, mum. I don't want any more, I have to go.

But today is Sunday. Where are you going?

I have to do some work in the library.

Do libraries work on Sundays?

They do. They have a day off on Mondays.

Let him go.

Alright.

I'm off.

Don't forget your briefcase.

Thanks.

Good morning.

You walk grinning agreeably,

trying to look like everybody else,

but you remain alien, alien to this celebration of life.

And you don't have to look back to know

that they're pointing at you,

and that your faithful black sun is following you.

Pik! Pik!

- Hello, Skiff! - Hello!