“Continue, Captain, I’m curious. At times I find myself in your words.”
And the captain continued, lighting if not the third, then the forth cigarette.
“I suppose I need to learn much. However, I found my family in my ship and crew, and the family, as it befits, always takes all free time. There are not such hours at my disposal to do sport, swim and dive in the mornings, study English to go to a highly prestigious university, write a book that I will leave for the citizens of my future town and to love my ship. I give up my plans for a hundred time, yet the time passes by, and soon I won’t make my dream of the past come true, given that I won’t look younger again. What shall I do?”
Zhenka answered after a long observing of the first night stars’ colours and the disposition of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and diverse constellations.
“Can you see the stars? They stay idle, sprawling in the sky with the natural grace and do not do a thing except for appearing to light at night and next move homeward. However, there are so many people who are inspired to do good deeds. And here, you see, there is a Chinese lantern floating in the sky. I don’t know who flew it, but, I’m sure one did it to delight a relative. Maybe to motivate one who is like you to go toward goals. Meanwhile you will laugh precisely at this lantern, wondering at how this person could waste money on such a trifle. The same happens in life. You should not have just one goal, but invent new ones on the way you try to reach your first goal. Of course, planets I described are not as careless. Perhaps, they come in the sky to speak with stars and make them fell happier. They do a tiny deed, and, as the result, a person is excited when he can see bright Mars and writes a genius poem…”
Chapter 12
The ferry was to sail for four days and nights. Earlyborn and soon Zhenka got to the weather in that rainy January time would not stop bringing them joy with its heavy rains and storms. There was no day yet when the sun shone for the whole day, only leaving its duty to have lunch. I would like to say, by the way, that the nap after lunch has its power; I will return to that not once. As a person will never be bored gazing at the snow fallen after the first winter snow flurry, so will I again and again have an hour sleep after coming home to have lunch.
***
There is a particular justice in life which can be grasped. Now Luisian was on the road to Moscow, not caring a damn about the lost mascot, and Dionysius, in his turn, suddenly came up with the idea: “What’s the reason for me to run after this crank at the edge of the world? Let it be a lesson for his future. Hope then he will grow up and stop trusting his fate to the mascot…” I guess, my dear readers, you have a question, “Where Luisian was going?” It is even interesting for me, as we forgot about our supporting characters who are in this story beyond the main ones. And we do not the place where we left Luisian. He was a determined person and notwithstanding his a bit strange life values, he had rule to constantly excel himself. Luisian found the meaning of life in work. Exactly when the person start feeling sadness or light melancholy when you wish to strangle yourself with the beams of your dishonour, that means you should continue your doings harder until the cry full of exhaustion “I can’t!” comes out of your chest, and everything will be alright. Furthermore, a person will be contented after that.
The day we left our character was not well. He baffled himself with a question “What do I like most: the right or the left?” and began answering it until he asked himself whether it was worth thinking over. But the majority of deeds we did in the past will not repeat in the future. And this, I reckon, is pleasure. So Luisian answered he enjoyed the fact that whatever side (either the right or the left) you choose, you will accomplish your goal, and the life will made such a circle with you that you will get on the summit of a mountain by a serpentine road and will see the bottom. All of a sudden, Luisian heard a voice. “Don’t swim against the current, my friend. Without doubt, it is good when you find strengths to work when others burst into tears, but someone who will dear to heal your hurt heart will face huge problems helping you. You’d better go to the Caribbean.” The voice belonged to one seller. “Did they all agree to tell my about one and the same thing?”
It happened to Luisian not long ago, when he was the highly paid Ded Moroz in Italy, as if it was yesterday. Luisian sat on a porch in a café after one of his clients in the morning, looking at the ideal slightly golden surface of the velvet sea and heard: “A recent survey showed 100 percent of the Earth population were in favour of visiting the Caribbean sea.” But Luisian, fingering slowly his beard which became light-brown from the scalding sun, lonely sat in Italy, as an enormous octopus that gobbled the life on the planet an was looking at bare areas, and Luisian literally drink the icy Mediterranean Sea in with his cup of tea. Here Luisian met Petrupavius.
***
Petrupavius, or just Petri, and Luisian sold tables with curved patterns, sofas made of fur and diverse cloths. Petri was glad because he found a new companion to start up the business, and Luisian was glad, since he was free of boredom. The last one, as you remember, was a hard-working person and, therefore, always got satisfaction after work.
Each of them was happy. Luisian settled down, which was the wish he wanted to bring into reality. He began to live under the mansard roof of the main building in a town. Greeting dawns and feeding pigeons would be perfect there. Surprisingly, it would simply good to greet dawns. Somehow Paris pigeons disappeared somewhere this January. It looked as if they moved together with Earlyborn, who often fed them at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower early mornings. Truly when we inspires someone to wake their desire to live, we inspires them greatly in their eyes. As those planets in the sky. Luisian was alright. Yet one feeling still stayed with him and bothered his weary brains: Dionysius could not get out of his mind all the time, as if that person started dwelling in his head, he wanted to tell him something, help him or seek for Luisian’s help.
Moscow beckoned Luisian. Although he had never been to this town, he dreamed to see Moscow churches’ domes as never before; his childhood dreams about visiting Argentinian pastures were less strong than this one. He carried on living under mansard roof, greeted sunrises, and bade farewells to sunsets, reading a wonderful book about the Earth. He cherished the travel to Moscow in his mind and got used to a thought he would never see his bronze bee. This humility gladdened him, as any humility in life that is not hard for the soul or heart to endure. That is so, since humility let us realize: it is possible to live on one piece of land during the whole life without exploring other areas of the world and be happy.
Chapter 13
Life always imposes its rules and create circumstances. If once you became a collective farm chairman or a lottery winner, know you should thank life for that. Yet if there are no blessings in your life, you are helpless to improve it. Luisian seemed, on the contrary, to succeed in his business. He worked with Petri and earned the money he had never got for simple work. “How will you spend your money?” That very minute Luisian craved to live according to the Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs5. If life placed you on the top of happiness, you cannot oppose its will. You hardly ever will ponder about higher art than popular art. As Luisian started to earn more money, he looked at life differently. An adult looks with sadness at his paintings he created in childhood and at the cartoons he loved back in the days. He calls in mind his plane and realizes he cannot change a thing. Luisian bought smart suits, played chess, he even became a member of a Literature club, then of a Gentlemen one, went to the theatre on Sundays; as he had too much money, he purchased a pair of glasses: so small that you could not make out his age behind them; he looked marvelous in them as apples taste delicious when are ripe. Luisian tended not to bother about alterations happened with him, since he knew he was able to choose something only as long as life would wish it; the wealth he had could disappear as surprisingly as it appeared. Therefore, when the fish take the hook, under no circumstances must you leave this fishing spot. Luisian deemed his work as a usual thing and understood that if now when he had all which he wanted, he still thought he felt bad, he was a raw fish that could not be eaten. Luisian suffered from mental turmoil and altered his attitude to life and his psychological needs: he maximized and minimized the time given for sleeping, eating and communicating with people. You may get it if imagine your cat dressed wearing an expensive fur coat and yourself hugging your pet with passion. The cat would ran away immediately. Why? Everything should have frames. Luisian tried to forget that there is another life for so long time that one evening forgot, sitting on the porch. He was so scared that got away. Never do and never did spare money do good to anyone. Nature cannot be fooled, and Luisian was perfect, playing with his most fashionable suit jacket, so that it floated, throwing away annoying glasses and, in addition to that, taking off his shoes, which he polished just a couple of hours ago. Yep… People do not run away from wild animals like this—they usually do this to avoid themselves. More often people rush so, because were too confident in themselves and bit off more than one can chew. Luisian could not find anything more pleasant than to buy a jar of Elysees honey6, sat in the long-distance train, and he, like a child, began to pick the wallpaper patterns with his fingers. Well, any outcome in life can be deemed as outcome, which means life tells us that everything is possible, and if you want to go—go. Luisian went, unable to bear the wealth that fallen on him, bringing problems, and he became relieved. However, it does not mean you should run away any time problems attack you. No. The same is at sea. Not any wave will cause the storm. It needs serious reasons to do that. I would say, “It is always better to stay at the place than to go from it, for if you stayed, no one would blame you for betrayal. Moreover, to leave the place you need to be cautious and always explore new areas. Scouts are highly paid, although posthumously. Yet if you decided to go—go till the end. Run without a backward glance, withdraw formidable obstacles as a person who is running from a tractor chasing him on the pavement in snowstorm. Run without a backward glance; the pavement has its edge, and the tractor does not have endless portion of fuel, but you will run, as if you were the eternal engine, further and further, drawing a supposed pavement in his mind in front of you and simultaneously destroying it in front of the tractor.
5
The work of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, which presents the hierarchy of things people are likely to have. First appeared in an academic journal in the USA in 1943. Is used to learn person’s behavior.