"Part Two" "STALKER" "Where are you?" "Come here!" "Are you tired?" "Oh, God!" "Judging by his tone, he's going to start sermonizing again." "Let everything that's been planned come true." "Let them believe." "And let them have a laugh at their passions." "Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, butjust the friction between their souls and the outside world." "And most important, Iet them believe in themselves" "let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing." "When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is hard and insensitive." "When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant, but when it's dry and hard, it dies." "Hardness and strength are death's companions." "PIiancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being." "Because what has hardened will never win." "Come here!" "We're progressing well." "Soon we'II come to a dry tunnel, after that it will get easier." "Knock on wood." " Are we on our way already?" " Of course." "Why?" "I thought you just wanted to show us something." " What about my knapsack?" " What about it?" "I Ieft it there." "I didn't know we were going." " There's nothing we can do about it." " No, we have to go back." " It's impossible!" " I can't do without my knapsack!" "Can't you understand that no one here has ever come back the same way?" "Forget about your knapsack." "What have you got there, diamonds?" "The room will give you anything you want." "really." "It will drown you in knapsacks." "How far is it, this room?" "If you go straight, about 200 meters, but there's no going straight here." "Let's go." "Give up your empiricism, Professor." "miracles are outside empiricism." "Remember how St. Peter was nearly drowned?" "Go, Writer." "Go where?" "Up these stairs." "Professor, where are you?" "Here is the dry tunnel!" "You call it dry?" "This is a local joke." "normally one has to swim here." "Wait, where's Professor?" " What?" " Professor has disappeared!" "How could it happen?" "He was following you all the way." "He probably Iagged behind and lost his way." "No, he didn't lose his way!" "He must've gone for the knapsack!" "He won't be able to make it now." "shall we wait for him?" "We can't." "Things change here every minute." "We'II have to go." "Look!" "What is it?" "How could it be?" " I already explained." " What did you explain?" "It's the Zone, don't you understand?" "Let's go, quick." "It's..." "There he is!" "I'm certainly grateful to you that you... but..." "How did you get here?" "mostly I had to crawl up here on my fours." "incredible." "How did you manage to overtake us?" "What do you mean, "overtake"?" "I came back here for the knapsack." "And how has our nut gotten here?" "Oh, my God, that's..." "the trap!" "Porcupine put this nut here on purpose." "How could the Zone let us through?" "Oh God, I'm not going to take one more step until..." "I don't like it." "That's it!" "We rest!" "But keep off this nut, just in case." "Sorry, but I thought that Professor won't be able to make it." "You see, I..." "I never know beforehand what kind of people I'm taking with me." "Everything gets clear only here, when it's too late." "What's important is that Professor's bag with his underwear is safe." "Don't stick your nose in someone's underwear if you don't understand it." "What is there to understand?" "binomial theorem?" "Some psychological abysses!" "You have a bad reputation at your institute." "They don't give you money for an expedition." "So you decide to pack a knapsack full of manometers and other shit... penetrate the Zone illegally... and put all these miracles to an algebra test." "No one in the world has ever heard of the Zone." "So we'II work a sure sensation!" "The television, fans raving and bringing laurel wreaths." "Here our Professor appears, all in white, and declares:" ""Mene-mene, tekeI, uprasin."" "Everyone gaping and shouting:" ""He deserves a nobel Prize!"" "You lousy scribbIer, a homespun psychoanaIyst." "You're only good for painting walls in public toilets, you bIabbermouth." "No good." "Too sluggish." "You don't know how to do it." "AII right." "I'm going to get a nobel Prize." "And what are you after?" "Want to bless mankind with the pearls of your purchased inspiration?" "I don't care a damn about mankind." "Of all your mankind" "I'm interested only in one man - myself." "Whether I'm worth anything or I'm just shit like others." "And if you find out that you're really..." "You know, Mr. Einstein, I have no wish to argue with you." "Truth is born of argument, damn it!" "Listen, Chingachgook..." "You've brought here many people." "Not as many as I would Iike." "That's not the point." "Why did they come here?" "What did they want?" "Happiness, I guess." "Yes, but what kind of happiness?" "people don't like to speak about their innermost feelings." "And it's neither yours nor mine business." "In any case, you've been lucky." "As for me, I haven't seen one happy man in my Iife." "Me neither." "They return from the room and I lead them back, and we never see each other again." "It's not that wishes come true immediately." "Have you ever wished to use this room yourself?" "I'm fine as I am." "Listen, Professor." "Speaking of the purchased inspiration." "Let's imagine that I enter this room and return to our God-forsaken town a genius." "A man writes because he's tormented, because he doubts." "He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something." "And if I know for sure that I'm a genius?" "Why write then?" "What the hell for?" "well, I must say that we exist for..." "will you be so kind and leave me alone?" "Let me get a wink, I haven't slept all night." "Keep your complexes to yourself." "In any case, all this technology of yours... all those blast furnaces, wheels... and other bullshit are only designed in order to work less and eat more." "They are all just crutches, artificial limbs." "And mankind exists in order to create... works of art." "unlike all other human activities, this one is unselfish." "Great illusions!" "Images of the absolute truth!" "Are you listening to me, Professor?" "What unseIfishness are you talking about?" "people still die of hunger." "Have you fallen from the moon?" "And they are considered to be our brainy aristocracy!" "You're not even capable of thinking in abstractions." "Are you going to teach me about the meaning of Iife?" "And also how to think?" "It's useless." "You might be a professor, but an ignorant one." "And there was a great earthquake." "And the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair." "And the moon became like blood..." "And the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind." "And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up." "And every mountain and island were moved out of their places." "And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich and the chiIiarchs and the strong and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;" "and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "FaII on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath has come," "and who is able to stand?"" "And that very day two... two of them... were going to a village which was about 60 stadia from... named... and they were conversing with each other about all these things." "And while they were conversing and discussing..." "He himself approached, and began travelling with them." "But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him." "And He said to them:" ""What are these words... you are exchanging with one another, and why are you sad?"" "And one of them, named..." "Are you awake?" "You were speaking of the meaning... of our..." "life... of the unselfishness of art..." "Take music, for instance." "Less than anything else, it is connected to reality, or if connected at all, it's done mechanically, not by way of ideas, just by a sheer sound, devoid of..." "any associations." "And yet, music, as if by some miracle, gets through to our heart." "What is it that resonates in us in response to noise brought to harmony, making it the source of the greatest delight which stuns us and brings us together?" "What's all this needed for?" "And most important, who needs it?" "You would say, "No one." "And for no reason."" "UnseIfishIy." "No." "I don't think so." "After all, everything has some sense." "Sense and reason." "Do we have to go there?" "unfortunately, yes." "There's no other way." "It looks morbid, don't you think, Professor?" "I don't feel like going there first." "And Chingachgooks can never be volunteers." "I think we'II have to draw lots." "Do you mind?" "For this, I would rather have a volunteer." "Have you got matches?" "Thanks." "The long one will go." "pull it." "The long one." "No luck this time." "Why don't you throw one of your nuts at Ieast?" "Sure." "As you wish." "One more?" "AII right..." "I'II go." "Hurry up, Professor!" "There's..." "There's a door here!" "Go that way!" "Open the door and go in!" "Me again?" "Do I have to go in first again?" "You've drawn the lot." "Go!" "people don't wait here." "What have you got there?" "No guns here!" "You'II have yourself killed, and us too!" "Don't you remember the tanks?" "Drop it, I beg you." "Don't you understand?" "If something happens, I can save you, but not this way..." "I beg you!" "Who are you going to fire at?" "Go, we haven't got much time!" "There's water here!" "hold on to the handrail and go down." "But don't go anywhere!" "Wait for us outside!" "I hope you haven't got anything like that?" " Like what?" " Like a gun." "No." "As a last resort I've got an ampule." " What ampuIe?" " implanted ampuIe." "Poison!" "Oh, God!" "Did you come here to die?" "No, it's just in case." "Writer!" "Come back!" "Come back!" "You want to get yourself killed?" "I told you to wait by the exit!" "Stop!" "Don't move!" "That's all your pipe." " Why?" " You should've gone in there first." "He was so scared that he went the wrong way." "One more experiment." "Experiments, facts, truth of the highest instance." "There's no such thing as facts." "especially here." "AII this is someone's idiotic invention." "Don't you feel it?" "But you, of course, must find out whose invention it is." "And why." "What good can your knowledge do?" "Who is going to get guilty conscience because of it?" "Me?" "I've got no conscience." "I just got nerves." "Some bastard would criticize me, I get wounded." "Another would loud me, I get wounded again." "I would put my heart and soul in it, they gobble up both my heart and soul." "I would relieve my soul of filth, they gobble it up too." "They're all so literate." "They all got sensory deficiency." "And they're all swarming around, journalists, editors, critics, some endless broads." "And they all demand:" "more, more!" "What hell of a writer am I if I hate writing?" "If it's constant torment for me, a painful, shameful occupation, sort of squeezing out a hemorrhoids." "I used to think that someone would get better because of my books." "No, nobody needs me!" "In two days after I die they'II start gobbling up someone else." "I wanted to change them, but it's they who've changed me." "Making me in their own image." "The future used to be just a continuation of the present, with all the changes looming far behind the horizon." "Now the future and the present are one." "Are they ready for it?" "They don't want to know anything!" "AII they know is how to gobble!" "Gosh, how lucky you are!" "My goodness, now..." "You're going to live a hundred years!" "Yes." "But why not forever?" "Like the eternal Jew." "You are probably a fine man." "I almost didn't doubt it." "I can imagine what torture it was for you being in there." "This pipe is a horrible place!" "The most horrible in the Zone!" "It's called "the meat mincer", but it's much worse than any mincer." "So many people perished there!" "Porcupine sent his brother to die there." "The boy was so delicate, very talented." "Here, listen to this." "So summer is gone, Leaving no epitaph." "It's still warm in the sun, only that's not enough." "AII that true could have come," "Like a five-fingered fluff, folded into my palm," "only that's not enough." "No evil was slighted In the good aftermath," "world was festively Iighted, only that's not enough." "Life forever was tucking, Caring, making me laugh." "I was really lucky, only that's not enough." "No leaves ever seared, No limbs broken rough." "Day, Iike glass, washed all clear, only that's not enough." "Good, aren't they?" "That's his verses." "Why do you fidget?" "Fussing all the time?" " I'm just..." " I get sick just looking at you!" "I'm so happy!" "It's not often that everyone who goes makes it." "You did everything right." "You're good, kind, honest people." "I'm proud that I was right about you." "Look at him!" "He's happy that everything ended well!" "Fate!" "Zone!" "I'm a fine man, he says!" "You think I didn't see how you shoved the two long matches at me?" " No, you don't understand..." " Of course, how could I?" "I'm sorry, Professor, no offense meant, but this jerk has chosen you to be his favorite." "Come on, it's unfair!" "And me, a second-rate creature, he shoves into that pipe!" "Meat mincer!" "To think of such a word!" "What right have you got to decide who is to live and who is to go into the meat mincer?" "You've chosen it yourself!" "What?" "One long match out of the two long ones?" "The matches are nothing." "The Zone had let you through earlier, under the nut, so it became clear that only you could go through the meat mincer." "And we just followed you." "well, it's too much..." "You can't even imagine how dangerous it is to make a mistake here." "But someone had to be first!" "Yes?" "No, it's not a clinic!" "You see, someone has to go first!" "Don't touch it!" "Laboratory nine, please." "Just a minute." " hello?" " I hope I'm not disturbing you." " What do you want?" " Just a few words with you." "You've hidden it." "I've found it." "The old building." "Bunker four." "Do you hear me?" "I'm alerting the security immediately." "You may do it." "You may inform on me, you may set my colleagues against me, but it's too late." "I'm now at a stone's throw from that place." "Do you realize that's the end of you as a scientist?" "well, you may rejoice!" "Do you realize what will happen if you dare?" "Trying to scare me again?" "AII my Iife I've been afraid of something." "Even of you." "But now I'm not afraid of anything, I assure you." "Oh God, you are not even a Herostratos." "It's just that you've always wanted to make my Iife unbearable because twenty years ago I slept with your wife." "And now you're delighted that you've made even with me." "well, go and do your..." "vile thing." "Don't you dare hang up on me!" "Prison is not the worst thing expecting you." "The worst is that you'II never be able to forgive yourself for this." "I already see you hanging from your suspenders in your prison cell." "What are you up to, Professor?" "Do you realize what will happen when everybody believes in the room?" "And all come rushing here?" "It's only a question of time." "If not today, then tomorrow!" "And notjust tens of them, thousands!" "unfulfilled emperors, great inquisitors, fuhrers, seIf-appointed benefactors of the human race!" "And they'II come not for money or inspiration, but to change the world!" "I never take here people like that." "You think I don't understand it?" "What on earth can you understand?" "You're not the only stalker on Earth." "No stalker can know what those you lead bring with them and what they take from here." "And the number of unmotivated crimes is on the rise!" "Isn't that your doing?" "Take coups d'etat by the military, or the mafia penetrating governments, aren't they all your clients?" "Or Iasers and all those super-bacteria, all that filth, kept for the time being in safes?" "will you please stop this sociological diarrhea?" "Can you really believe in all those fairy tales?" "Not in the good ones, no!" "But in the bad ones, certainly!" "Come on!" "A human being is not capable of such hatred or love... that would extend over the whole of mankind."