“I shall make a Universe Girl happy”.

I looked at my little son, who could read and had revealed to me the most extraordinary and probably the ‘livingest’ book in the world. I realised it would take a very long time to read it in its entirety Besides, I would need to know the names of all the plants. But for some reason I had a good feeling in my heart just from the fact that it existed — this book with “all sorts of happy letters” (the way my son expressed it). And he will read it.

But what then? What will happen when he grows up? He said he would be like me. That means he’ll go into our world. Into a world full of wars, drugs, violent crime and poisoned water. Why should he go there? And yet he’s got himself ready for it. He’s ready to go into our world when he grows up and do something good in it. I wonder what? I asked him:

“Volodya, when you grow up, what kind of task or job do you think will be the most important for you?”

“Mama Anastasia told me. First and most important when I grow up is... I need to make a particular Universe Girl happy” “Who? What kind of Universe or Girl?”

“Every girl living on the Earth is the likeness of the Universe. At first I did not understand this. Then I read, I read the book, and understood. Every girl is like the Universe. Each girl has within her all the diverse energies of the Universe. Universe Girls should be happy And I must be sure to make one of them happy.”

‘And how do you intend to carry out your project when you grow up?”

“I shall go where many people are living and find her.” “Who?”

‘A girl.”

“She will, of course, be extraordinarily beautiful?” “Probably But perhaps she will be a bit sad, and not everybody will think she is beautiful. Perhaps she will be someone who is ill. Where you live, Papa, many people are ill from ‘anti-living’ conditions.”

‘And just why would you pick a girl who is not the healthiest and most beautiful?”

“I am the one, Papa, who will make her the happiest, healthiest and most beautiful Universe Girl.”

“But how? Though by that time, when you’re grown up, you’ll probably have learnt how to make another person — your girl — happy But, Volodya, you don’t know everything there is to know about the world in which I live. It could be... it could turn out, after all, that the girl you pick may not even want to talk with you.

“Aou know who today’s girls notice? You don’t know. I’ll tell you. The pretty ones and the not-so-pretty, the sick and the healthy — they notice first and foremost men who have heaps of money, and a car — men who dress smartly and have a good social position. Not all of them, of course, but the

majority are that way And where are you going to get heaps of money?”

“‘Heaps’ — how much is that, Papa?”

“Well, for example, let’s say at least a million. Better still, a million dollars. You know about currency units?”

“Mama Anastasia told me about the scraps of paper and coins which people love. She said people give out clothes, food and all sorts of things in exchange for them.”

“They do. But where do they get the money, d’you know? To get this money, you have to work somewhere. No, just working isn’t enough, if you want a lot... You have to get into business or invent something. For example, Volodya, could you really invent something people need, something they’re really missing?”

‘And what kind of invention are people missing the most, Papa?”

“What kind? Well, all sorts. A lot of regions are being hit by an energy crisis, for example. There’s not enough electric power. People don’t want to build nuclear power plants — they’re dangerous, they can explode. But they can’t get along without them.”

“Nuclear? Where radiation from them can kill people and growing things?”

Y)u know about radiation?”

“Yes, it is everywhere. It is energy. It is good. Needful. Only it should not be collected in a large quantity in one place. Grandfather taught me how to control radiation. Only it must not be talked about openly — some people turn good radiation into weapons to kill other people.”

“Yes. Better not to talk openly about it. I should think you would really be able to invent something and earn a good deal of money for your girl.”

“Probably I shall be able to. But money does not make people happy”

“What do you think makes people happy?”

“The Space they make for themselves.”

I pictured to myself my son becoming a young man. Maybe knowing a lot of unusual things, all sorts of phenomena, albeit naive. Capable of coping even with radiation, but still naive in respect to the intricacies permeating our lives... and there he’ll be, off to look for his girl to make her happy

He’ll try not to stand out amidst other people. That was always Anastasia’s strategy when she left the taiga and went out among people. He will try not to stand out, yet all the same, he will never be able to completely blend in. He’s preparing himself, he’s acquiring a colossal amount of knowledge, he’s trying to become physically fit and all for the sake of one lonely girl!

I thought Anastasia would prepare our son for great deeds and to this end would share her own knowledge and abilities with him. And now it turns out that he sees a man’s main goal in life as simply making just one woman happy My son’s convinced that every woman is the likeness of the whole Universe. Could it really be like that? An extraordinary philosophy, but in any case the point is: my son is convinced of it and one of his chief aims in life will be to make just one girl happy — a girl he doesn’t even know. Maybe she hasn’t even been born yet. Maybe she can crawl already, or she’s just taking her first steps. Or — maybe no girl will want to, or rather, maybe no girl is capable of loving him.

Initially, when he fulfils her wishes and brings her money, she may pretend to love him. Oh, how many women there are like that in our world! They’re even ready to jump into marrying some oldster for the sake of his money They’ve learnt how to feign love.

My son will grow up and meet some girl like that, he’ll keep fulfilling her wishes, she’ll keep telling him she loves him, but what will happen when he starts talking about the need to create a Space of Love and plant a garden? Will she laugh at him? Will she call him crazy, or will she understand? Maybe she’ll understand. But maybe... No, it’s better to prepare him for the worst.

“You see, Volodya, when you find this girl and you manage to make her healthy and very beautiful — absolutely the most beautiful, as you say — something might still happen that you know nothing about. The prettiest girls in our world aspire to become models and actresses and go into show-business. They like it when all the men around them pay them compliments. So, just imagine she wants to dazzle the public like a queen, and here you start proposing to create a Space of Love. Maybe she’ll hear you out, but that’ll be it. She’ll leave you and go off somewhere where there’s lots of bright lights, compliments and applause, and she could even — God forbid! — leave you holding a baby! What’ll you do then?” Volodya replied unhesitatingly:

“Then I shall build a Space all on my own. First on my own, and then with the child she leaves me — and together we shall preserve Love in this Space.”

“Preserve it for whom?”

“For myself, Papa, and for the girl, who, as you say, will go off into the world of artificial lights.”

“Then why preserve a Space of Love specifically for her? Don’t you see how naive you are in such matters? You’ll have to look for another girl. And be more careful the next time.” “If I look for another, then who will make the girl who left happy?”

“Let anyone who wants to try to, do that. It’s not worth breaking your neck over. She’s gone, and that’s it.”

“She will come back. And she will see the marvellous forest and garden. I shall make it so all the creatures serve and obey her. Every one and every thing in this Space will sincerely love her.

“She will probably come back all tired out. She will wash herself in pure water and have a good rest. She will become even more beautiful and will never want to leave her Space of Love ever again. Our Space. She will be happy. And the stars above her will shine brighter and happier than anywhere else. But if you, Papa, had not thought all this up, if you had not brought about such a situation with your thought about her leaving, she would not have left.”

“I? I brought it about?”

“Yes, Papa. After all, you are the one that spoke about it. It was your thought. Man creates all kinds of situations with his thought, and this is what you have created.”

“But you, your thought — can’t it change the situation? Can’t it counteract mine? You did say it was quick, almost as quick as Anastasia’s.”

“It could counteract it.”

“So go ahead, counteract it.”

“I do not want my thought to run counter to yours, Papa. I shall seek out another way”

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