The Sacrifice (Offret) (Offret)

THE SACRIFICE

Come here and give me a hand, boy!

Once upon a time, long ago

an old monk lived in an Orthodox monastery.

His name was Pamve.

And once he planted a barren tree on a mountainside

just like this.

Then he told his young pupil,

a monk named Ioann Kolov,

that he should water the tree each day until it came to life.

Put a few stones there, will you?

Anyway, early every morning

Ioann filled a dipper with water and went out.

He climbed up the mountain and watered the withered tree

and in the evening when darkness had fallen

he returned to the monastery.

He did this for three years.

And one fine day,

he climbed up the mountain and saw

that the whole tree was covered with blossoms!

Say what you will, but a method, a system, has its virtues.

You know, sometimes I say to myself,

if every single day,

at exactly the same stroke of the clock,

one were to perform the same single act,

like a ritual,

unchanging, systematic, every day at the same time,

the world would be changed.

Yes, something would change.

It would have to.

One could wake up in the morning, let's say,

get up at exactly seven,

go to the bathroom,

pour a glass of water from the tap,

and flush it down the toilet. Only that!

I'll be hard to get rid of today!

Beautiful, eh?

Like Japanese Ikebana.

I will come to your house to wish you well on your birthday.

I am very honored by the invitation!

Here's the last of it.

The post office is closed.

Anyone who turns up now will just have to wait till tomorrow.

Here!

I don't have my glasses. Please read it.

"Happy Birthday, dear friend STOP.

Mighty Richard greets good Prince Myshkin STOP.

God grant you joy, health and peace STOP.

From your loyal and loving

Richardians and Idiotists STOP."

Oh, how touching!

A joke.

Friends, and their jokes!

"Idiotists..." That's not half bad.

"God grant you joy..." Say, how is your relationship to God?

Non-existent, I'm afraid. What do you mean?

It could be worse.

Here you are...

a famous journalist,

a theatrical and literary critic,

who lectures on aesthetics for students at the university.

Hey, your lasso! Run and fetch it!

And essays...

you write them too.

But you're so gloomy!

What's that supposed to mean, "gloomy"?

Well, you shouldn't grieve so much.

You shouldn't yearn so for something.

You shouldn't be waiting like that. That's important.

One shouldn't be waiting for something.

"Shouldn't be waiting"? Who says I'm waiting for anything?

We all are...

waiting for something!

Take me, for example.

All my life I've been going around waiting for something.

All my life, in fact, I've felt as if...

as if I were waiting in a railway station.

And I've always felt as if...

as if the living I've done, so far, hasn't actually been real life

but a long wait for it...

a long wait for something real,

something important! What about you?

Yes, if that's what you mean.

I just never knew you were interested in that kind of problem.

But I am!

I most certainly am! Unfortunately.

Sometimes I get the most peculiar notions.

Yes, I mean it.

Like that dwarf, for example.

That notorious dwarf!

What dwarf?

Look here, you've managed to muddle me up completely!

Oh, you know who I mean. That hunchback!

Eh? The one Nietzsche mentioned.

The one who made Zarathustra faint.

Faint? What are you talking about?

I say, do you know Nietzsche?

No, not personally.

I haven't really studied him all that carefully.

However...

he interests me, I can't deny it.

So?

Sometimes I get silly things in my head, things like this "eternal recurrence."

We live, we have our ups and downs.

We hope.

We wait for something.

We hope, we lose hope, we move closer to death.

Finally, we die

and are born again. But we remember nothing.

And everything begins again, from scratch.

Not literally the same way,

just a wee, wee bit different.

But it's still so hopeless

and we don't know why.

Yes...

No, I mean.

Really, it's quite the same,

literally, the same.

Just the next performance, so to speak.

If I'd made it all, I guess I'd have done things the same way.

Funny, eh?

But I've heard all that, it's nothing new.

You didn't invent it!

Do you really think that mankind could devise a universal concept,

a model, so to speak,

of Absolute Law, of Absolute Truth?

Why, it'd be like trying to create a new universe!

To be a demiurge!

And you actually believe in your dwarf, do you? In your "recurrence"?

Yes...

Sometimes I do...

You understand?

If I truly believe,

it will be so.

"Believe that it hath been given

and it shall be given unto you."

But now I think I'll head home. It's late, I must think of a gift.

You needn't do that.

This is a very important day!

You'll be buried in telegrams!

Au revoir!

What?

What are you mumbling about?

In the beginning was the Word.

But you are mute, mute as a fish.

A little smelt.

Look here, my boy, we've lost our way.

Humanity is also on the wrong road, a dangerous road.

So, up you go! Dear, how heavy you are.

The first impression that Man had...

How has he been lately? All right?

Yes.

In what way? He works a lot.

I don't like his monologues.

Alexander!

Doctor! Wait, we'll come to you.

You're not equipped for a jaunt through Africa.

It's quite a job, you know.

- Hello. - Hello! Welcome.

- Many happy returns. - Thanks, thanks.

And you, young man, how are you?

Isn't it hard to keep silent?

I can well imagine. But it's good for you.

Sociability is a burden.

Not all of us can bear it.

- My brave boy. - Why "my"? He's "ours," after all.

He gargles and goes to bed by himself.

Gargles? That's nothing!

Think how well he behaved during the operation.

He's got the makings of a real man!

Open wide, now.

It looks fine. Keep that up and you'll be talking in a week.

By the way, did you know

that Gandhi had one day in the week when he spoke to no one?

- It was his system. - Why?

He was probably tired of people.

Shall we walk here?

You've deserted your patients.

And what elegance!

On a day like this, one has to live up to expectations.

Your present's in the trunk.

Still more presents!

- It's time we went home. - Yes, all of us.

But why don't you two take the car? We'll follow on foot.

We must finish our chat. Right, my boy?

Please don't be too late.

All right, little man?

Everything's almost ready.

Have I told you how your mother and I found this place?

We came here on a trip once. You weren't even thought of then.

It was the first time we were here.

We had no map with us, we forgot to bring one.

Besides, we'd run out of gas.

We stopped somewhere near here, then we kept going on foot.

Frankly, we were lost.

Then it started raining, a cold, ugly drizzle.

We came to that bend over there, by that dry old pine tree

and just then, the sun came out.

It stopped raining.

The light was dazzling!