"well, money, a woman, maybe a desire for revenge," "let my boss be overrun by a car, that I can understand." "But ruling over the world!" "Ajust society!" "God's kingdom on earth!" "These are notjust wishes, this is ideology, action, concepts." "Unconscious compassion is not ready for realization yet." "As a regular instinctive impulse." "There cannot be happiness at someone else's expense." "I can see quite clearly now that you plan to overwhelm mankind with good deeds." "As for me, I'm not a bit worried about you or myself, and least of all about mankind." "Because you're not going to achieve anything." "At best you'II get your NobeI Prize." "Or rather you'II get something absolutely incongruous, something you don't even think about." "Something like this telephone..." "You dream of one thing, but you get quite another." "Why did you do that?" "telephone... electricity..." "Look, very good sleeping pills." "They don't make ones like that any longer." "Why so many of them here?" "Maybe we'd better be going?" "It will be dark soon, difficult to come back." "By the way, it's absolutely clear to me that all this poem reciting and making detours is just a form of apologizing." "I can understand you." "difficult childhood, bad environment..." "But don't have any illusions, I'm not going to forgive you." "will you please stop it, do me a favor." "Professor, come here, please." "Wait a minute." "Don't be in a hurry." "I'm in no hurry whatsoever." "I know, you're going to get mad." "Anyway, I must tell you..." "We are now..." "on the threshold..." "This is the most important moment in your life." "You must know that..." "Your innermost wishes will be made real here." "Your most sincere wish!" "Born of suffering!" "No need to say anything." "You just have to... concentrate and try to recall your whole life." "When a man thinks of the past, he becomes kinder." "And most important..." "Most important..." "You have to believe!" "Now you can go." "Who wants to be the first?" "Maybe, you?" "Me?" "No, I don't want to." "I understand, it's not easy, but it will pass." "I doubt... that it will pass." "If I begin recalling my Iife, it's very unlikely I'II get any kinder." "Besides, don't you feel how shameful the whole thing is?" "humiliating yourself, sniveling, praying?" "What's so bad in praying?" "It's just your pride speaking." "calm down, you're not ready yet." "It happens quite often." "Maybe, you first?" "Yes, me." "We see before us Professor's new invention!" "An appliance exploring human souls!" "SouImeter!" "It's only a bomb." "What?" "You must be kidding." "No, it's just a bomb." "Twenty kiIotons." "What for?" "We had it assembled with my friends." "With my former colleagues." "This place will never bring any happiness to anyone." "But if this thing gets into the wrong hands..." "Though, I'm not sure any more." "We came to the conclusion then... that we shouldn't destroy the Zone after all." "Even if it's some miracle, it's still part of nature, and therefore, a hope in a sense." "They had hidden that bomb, and I've found it." "The old building, bunker four." "I guess there must be a principle..." "Never do anything that can't be undone." "I understand everything, I'm not some maniac." "But as long as this plague lies in the open, accessible to any scum," "I can get no peace, no sleep." "Or maybe, my innermost won't let me do it?" "Poor man, some problem he's invented for himself." "Give it to me!" "Give it to me!" "You're a civilized man, aren't you?" " Why?" "What's the matter with you?" " You, lousy hypocrite..." "Why?" "What have I done... to you?" "He wants to destroy your hope!" "That's all people have got left on this earth!" "It's the only place they can come to, if there's no hope left for them." "You yourself have come here!" "Why destroy hope then?" "Shut up!" "I can see through you!" "You don't give a damn about people!" "You just make money, using our... anguish!" "It's not even the money." "You're enjoying yourself here." "You're like God almighty here." "You, a hypocritical Iouse, decide who is to live and who is to die." "He deIiberates!" "Now I see why you stalkers never enter the room yourselves." "You revel in all that power, that mystery, your authority!" "What else is there to wish for?" "It's not true!" "You... you're mistaken." "A stalker must not enter the room." "A stalker must not even enter the Zone with an ulterior motive." "Remember Porcupine?" "Yes, you're right, I'm a louse." "I haven't done any good in this world, and I can't do any." "I couldn't give anything even to my wife." "I can't have any friends either." "But don't take mine from me!" "They'd already taken everything from me back there, behind the barbed wire." "So all that's mine is here." "You understand?" "Here!" "In the Zone!" "My happiness, my freedom, my seIf-respect, it's all here!" "I bring here people like me, desperate and tormented." "people who have nothing else to hope for." "And I can help them!" "No one else can help them, only I, the louse, can!" "I'm so happy to be able to help them that I want to cry." "And that's all." "I don't want anything more." "I don't know." "Maybe." "Anyway, excuse me, but..." "You're just a God's fool." "You have no idea what's going on here." "Why do you think Porcupine hanged himself?" "He came to the Zone with a mercenary motive." "He made his brother die in the meat mincer because of money." "I know." "But why did he hang himself?" "Why didn't he come here again, not for money, but for his brother?" "In way of repenting." "He wanted to..." "I don't know." "He hanged himself a week later." "Because he realized that notjust any wish comes true here, but only your innermost wish." "Not what would you holler at the top of your voice..." "Coming true here is only what's in line with your nature, with your essence, of which you know nothing." "But it's there, in you, directing you all your life." "You didn't understand anything, Leather Stocking." "It wasn't greed that had done Porcupine in." "He was crawling in this puddle, begging to bring his brother back." "But what he got was only money, and he couldn't get anything else, because render unto Porcupine the things that are Porcupine's!" "And things like conscience, anguish, they are just inventions." "He realized that and hanged himself." "I'm not going to your room." "I have no wish to pour my filth over somebody's head." "Even yours." "And then to put my neck into the noose, Iike Porcupine." "I'd rather drink myself to death in my mansion, in peace and quiet." "You don't understand anything about human beings, Chingachgook, if you take to the Zone people like me." "And something else..." "Why do you think that this miracle really exists?" "Who told you that wishes actually come true here?" "Have you seen a single man who's been made happy here?" "Was it Porcupine?" "As a matter of fact, who told you about the Zone, about Porcupine, about that room?" "He did." "Then it makes no sense to me at all." "What's the use coming here?" "It's so quiet..." "Can you feel it?" "What the heck..." "Why not chuck it all, take my wife, Monkey, and move over here." "For good." "There's no one here." "No one can hurt them here." "So you're back." "Where did you get this?" "He got attached to me." "I couldn't leave him there." "well, shall we go?" "Monkey is waiting." "Are you coming?" "Does any one of you need a dog?" "I've got five of them at home." "So you love dogs, don't you?" "What?" "That's very good." "AII right, Iet's go." "You can't even imagine how tired I am!" "God only knows!" "calling themselves intellectuals, those writers and scientists!" "Don't get so excited." "They don't believe in anything!" "They've got the organ with which one believes atrophied for lack of use." "Stop it." "Come on." "Go to bed." "Don't lie here..." "It's too damp here for you..." "You shouldn't lie here." "Take it off." "Oh God, what people..." "calm down, it's not their fault." "You ought to pity them, not to be angry with them." "Haven't you seen them?" "They've got empty eyes." "The only thing they can think about is how to sell themselves not too cheap!" "How to get as much as possible for their every emotional movement!" "They know they were "born for a purpose", "called upon"!" "After all, they live "only once"!" "Can people like that believe in anything?" "Stop it, calm down." "Try to sleep, will you?" "Go to sleep." "And nobody believes." "Not only those two." "Nobody!" "Who am I going to take there?" "Oh, God..." "And what's most awful... is that no one needs it." "No one needs that room." "And all my efforts are just in vain." "Why do you say that?" "Stop it." "I'm not going there with anybody again." "Do you want me to go with you?" "Where?" "You think I've got nothing to ask for?" "No..." "You can't go there." "Why not?" "No, no." "What if it wouldn't work with you, either?" "You know, my mother was against it." "You've probably noticed already that he's not of this world." "AII our neighborhood laughed at him." "He was such a bungler, he looked so pitiful." "My mother used to say:" ""He's a stalker, he's doomed, he's an eternal prisoner!" "Don't you know what kind of children the stalkers have?"" "And I..." "I didn't even argue with her." "I knew it all myself, that he was doomed, that he was an eternal prisoner, and about the children." "only what could I do?" "I was sure I would be happy with him." "Of course, I knew I'd have a Iot of sorrow, too." "But it's better to have a bitter happiness than... a gray, dull life." "Perhaps, I thought it all up later." "But then he approached me and said:" ""Come with me."" "And I did, and never regretted it." "Never." "We had a Iot of sorrow, a Iot of fear, and a Iot of shame." "But I never regretted it, and I never envied anyone." "It's just our fate, our life, that's how we are." "And if we haven't had our misfortunes, we wouldn't have been better off." "It would have been worse." "Because in that case, there wouldn't have been any happiness." "And there wouldn't have been any hope." "I Iove your eyes, my darling friend," "Their play, so passionate and bright'ning," "When a sudden stare up you send," "And like a heaven-bIown lightning," "It'd take in all from end to end." "But there's more that I admire:" "Your eyes when they're downcast" "In bursts of Iove-inspired fire," "And through the eyelash goes fast" "A somber, dull call of desire..." "The End"