Faol said: "We sin and do good blindly. A bailiff was riding his bicycle. Suddenly, when he reached the Kazan Cathedral, he disappeared. Does he know what he was meant to accomplish, good or evil? Or take this case: an actor bought a fur coat. It could be supposed that he did a good deed to the old woman who, needing money, sold him that fur coat. Yet he also most likely did harm to another old woman, his mother, who lived with him and usually slept in the entry hall where the actor used to hang his coat, because the new fur coat smelled so unbearably of mothballs that one day the old woman, the actor's mother, was not capable of waking up, and she died. Or again - a graphologist somehow so soaked himself up with vodka and did such things that Colonel Dibich himself would not have been able to make head or tails of it, what was good and what was bad. To distinguish sin from good is very difficult."
Myshin, poring over Faol's words, fell off his chair. "Hoho," he said, lying on the floor, "hi hi."
Faol went on: "Let's take love. It can appear good and it can appear bad. On one hand, we are told, 'You should love,' and on the other hand, we are told, 'You should not coddle.' Perhaps it is better not to love at all to begin with? But we are told, 'You should love.' But if you love - you will coddle. What are we to do? Perhaps we should love, but not in that way? Then why do all nations use one and the same word to represent love like that and also love that is not like that? Another young actor loved his mother and also a very young, plumpish girl. And he loved them in different fashions. He would give the girl most of his pay. his mother was hungry quite often, but the girl drank and ate enough for three. The actor's mother lived in the entryway on the floor, but the girl had two nice rooms at her disposal. The girl had four coats, the mother one. And lo and behold, the actor took this one coat from his mother and spoiled the girl, but he did not coddle his mother. He loved her with a pure love. However, the actor feared his mother's death, though he did not fear the death of the girl. And when his mother died, the actor cried, and when the girl fell out the window and also died, the actor did not cry, but found himself another girl. It follows that one values a mother as unique, like a rare postage stamp, which one cannot replace with another one."
"Ho ho," said Myshin, lying on the floor, "Khokho."
Faol continued: "And this is called pure love! Is such a love good? If it is not, how is one to love? One mother loved her child. This child was two and a half years old. The mother would carry him into a park and set him down in the sand. Other mothers also brought their children to the same place. Sometimes as many as forty little children were bunched together in the sandbox. And one day a mad dog rushed into this park, ran right up to the children and started to bite them. Mothers, including our mother, rushed to their children, screaming. Sacrificing herself, she leaped at the dog and grabbed her child, as it seemed to her, out of the dog's mouth. But when she had snatched the little boy away, she saw that it was not her child, and she threw him back to the dog in order to seize her own little boy, who was lying right next to her, and save him from death. Who will answer my question: did she commit a sin or did she do a good deed?"
"Hyu hyu," said Myshin, rolling on the floor.
Faol went on: "Does a stone sin? Does a tree sin? Does an animal sin? Or does only a human being sin?"
"Hm hm," said Myshin listening to Faol's words, "shup shup."
Faol went on: "If only human beings sin, this means that the sins of the world are to be found in the human being himself. Sin does not enter into human beings, it only comes out of of them. That is similar to food: human beings eat good things and evacuate bad things out of themselves. There are no bad things in the world, only that which has passed through human beings can become bad."
"Mnph," said Myshin, trying to lift himself up from the floor.
Faol continued: "I have been speaking about love. I have been speaking about those states of ours to which we apply the single word 'love'. Is that a mistake in the language, or are all those states one and the same? The love of a mother for her boy, the love of a son for his mother, the love of a man and a woman - can it be that all those are one and the same love?"
"Definitely," said Myshin, nodding his head.
Faol said, "Yes, I think the essence of love remains the same regardless of who loves whom. Every human being is given a certain quantity of love. And every human being seeks to apply this love somewhere without taking off his little fuselages. The revelation of the mysteries of the transformations of the petty qualities of our heart, similar to a heap of sawdust -"
"Get!" Myshin shouted, jumping up off the floor. "Out of my sight!"
And Faol crumbled like a pile of bad sugar.
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