Laurus

by Eugene Vodolazkin

Life’s parts sometimes have little in common, so little that it might appear various people lived them. When this happens, it is difficult not to feel surprised that all these people carry the same name.

For Christofer, the written word seemed to regulate the world. Stop its fluctuations. Prevent notions from eroding. This is why Christofer’s sphere of interest was so broad. According to the writer’s thinking, that sphere should correspond to the world’s breadth.

You serve your memory and display boundless devotion, but know, O Arseny, that you are destroying the living in the name of the dead.

So why did you choose medieval history? It’s hard to say… Maybe because historians in the Middle Ages were unlike historians these days. They always looked for moral reasons as an explanation for historical events. It’s like they didn’t notice the direct connection between events. Or didn’t attach much significance to it. But how can you explain the world without seeing the connections? said Alexandra, surprised. They were looking above the everyday and seeing higher connections. Besides, time connected all events, even though people didn’t consider that connection reliable.

It’s possible that’s love, said Utkin, wavering. But love (Stroev flapped his arms around) is such an overpowering feeling that, as I understand things, it just convulses you. Practically makes you high. But I’m not feeling that. I miss her, yes. I’d like to be with her, yes. Hear her voice, yes. But not behave like a madman. You’re talking about passion that really is a form of insanity. But I’m talking about love, which is sensible and, if you like, predestined. Because when you miss someone, we’re talking about lacking a piece of you, yourself. And you’re looking to be reunited with that piece.

It took too long for you to get yourself together. Essentially, what’s happening here isn’t really about time, because true love is beyond time. It can, after all, wait an entire lifetime. (Parkhomenko sighs.) The cause of what’s happening here all lies in the absence of an internal fire. Your trouble, if you will, is that reaching final conclusions just isn’t your thing. You’re afraid the decision you make will deprive you of further choice, so that paralyzes your will. Even now, you don’t know why you’ve come. Meanwhile, you’ve missed out on the best thing life had arranged for you. You had, I can report to you, all the conditions that nature could present a person: a place to live on a quiet Pskov street, old linden trees outside the window, and good music on the other side of the wall. You didn’t take advantage of any of the things I just listed, so this trip is, just like your previous trip, a complete waste of time.

I am going to tell you something strange. It seems ever more to me that there is no time. Everything on earth exists outside of time, otherwise how could I know about the future that has not occurred? I think time is given to us by the grace of God so we will not get mixed up, because a person’s consciousness cannot take in all events at once. We are locked up in time because of our weakness.

I heard you were talking about death, said the merchant. You Russians really love talking about death. And it distracts you from getting on with your lives.

He ached with a feeling of gratitude toward Ambrogio, for looking after him. Arseny lay and thought he was, for the first time in so many years, not alone. He could feel how much he had tired of his loneliness. He began weeping. And went to sleep in tears.

Sometimes it is easier to speak when people do not understand you.

Because when you live in despair, you want to express your pain but are afraid it will become known to everyone when it leaves your lips.

Sometimes you wonder if it is worth getting attached to people if it will be this difficult to part with them later. Arseny slapped Brother Hugo on the back as he embraced him: You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?

Our death will be so stupid, Ambrogio said to Arseny in a quiet voice. But what death is not stupid? asked Arseny. Is it not stupid that coarse iron enters the flesh, violating its perfection? He who is not capable of creating even a fingernail on a little finger is destroying a most complex mechanism, something inaccessible to human comprehension.

Time was coming apart at the seams, like a wayfarer’s traveling bag, and it was showing its contents to the wayfarer, who contemplated them as if for the first time.

What sign do you want and what knowledge? asked an elder standing by the Empty Tomb. Do you not know that any journey harbors danger within itself? Any journey—and if you do not acknowledge this, then why move? So you say faith is not enough for you and you want knowledge, too. But knowledge does not involve spiritual effort; knowledge is obvious. Faith assumes effort. Knowledge is repose and faith is motion.

They took the route of faith, answered the elder. And their faith was so strong it turned into knowledge.

Arseny usually awaited spring’s appearance, but this time he had awoken in the middle of a spring that had already arrived, just as people suddenly awaken on a lovely day, see the sun is already high, contemplate its glints fluttering on the floor and the silver of a cobweb in a sunbeam, and weep tears of gratitude. At first Arseny thought, based on the smells and overall condition of the air, that this spring was identical to one from his childhood, but he gave himself a talking to right then and there.

Arseny thought back to the sorrowful events of his youth, but his thoughts were warm. These were already thoughts about someone else. He had long suspected that time was discontinuous and its individual parts were not connected to one another, much as there was no connection—other than, perhaps, a name—between the blond little boy from Rukina Quarter and the gray-haired wayfarer, almost an old man. Strictly speaking, his name changed, too, over the course of his life.