Chords of the Universe

 

‘Anastasia spoke warmly about you,” Alexander continued. “She knew all about people and events. She told them that the first book you wrote came out in Moscow in a small print-run, and it immediately led to enthusiastic reviews, poetry, paintings and songs. She said that thanks to the sincerity of the writing, the book preserved the combinations and symbols she had sought out in the Universe, and these were what aroused the extraordinary beneficial, panacean feelings in people.

“When Boris Moiseevich heard that, he began fidgeting, and abruptly sat down at the table by the tent. I noticed he was surreptitiously trying to switch on a tape recorder. He was probably so caught up with the pursuit of important information that he completely forgot about everyone else around. He didn’t even offer Anastasia a chair, he was so bent on extracting as much information from her as he could, and quickly This old grey-haired fellow was excited and fired off more questions: “‘Scientists in many countries of the world are trying to capture the extraordinary sounds of the Universe with their costly specialised equipment. These sounds are out there. They are known to science. Maybe not all of them, just a few for the time being. Maybe just a billionth part of the whole. What devices do you use to capture them, Anastasia? What equipment will allow us to select the sounds that can exert an effective influence on the human mind?’

“‘The equipment one needs has existed for a long time already It is called the human soul. The attitude and purity of the soul will accept or reject sounds from the Universe.’

“‘Okay, fine. Okay. Let’s assume. Let’s assume you’ve managed to... to find and select from the billions of sounds the best that the Universe has to offer, and then recombine them in the right way. But sound can only be reproduced with the help of a device or a particular musical instrument. What’s the point of a book, then? After all, it can’t make sounds.’ “‘You are right, a book does not make sounds. But it can serve as a score, like a musical score. The reader will involuntarily utter within himself any sounds he reads. Thus the hidden combinations in the text will resonate in the reader’s soul in their pristine form, with no distortion. They are bearers of Truth and healing. And they will fill the soul with inspiration. No artificial instrument is capable of reproducing what resonates in the soul.’

“‘How did Vladimir manage to preserve all your combinations if he himself knew nothing about them?’

“‘I took note ofVladimir’s speech patterns. Besides, I knew in advance that Vladimir would not distort the essence of the events or what he heard, that he would even present himself just the way he was. But he did not convey all the combinations of signs. He needed to carry on writing. After all, he set forth only a fraction of what he knew and was trying to make sense of when he started to write. He needed to continue with the writing.

“And he has already been touched by fame. An unprecedented fame at that. It would have taken only a little more effort to organise the fellowship of entrepreneurs. But then all of a sudden he took another step my dream did not anticipate. He left his Moscow apartment — on which the rent was already paid — to his Moscow entourage, he left to them the privilege of receiving compliments from readers, while he himself boarded a train and headed out of town.’

“‘Why did he do that?’

“‘He had been wanting all along to seek out confirmation of some of the things I had said — scientific confirmation of

the existence of various phenomena I had talked about. To investigate them. That is why he decided not to write any more for the time being. And so he went off to the Caucasus. He left Moscow to see the dolmens in the Caucasus with his own eyes — the ancient structures where living people went to die ten thousand years ago. I had told him about them. I also told him about the important functional significance these dolmens have for people living today

“‘Vladimir came to the city known as Gelendzhik. In the museum there, along with museums in Krasnodar and Novorossiysk, he collected material on the dolmens.  Then he met with various scientists, archaeologists and local ethnographers who were studying the dolmens. He ended up with considerably more information on them than was available in any one museum.

“‘Naturally I tried to help him inconspicuously. I used the mouths of people who came to see Vladimir to inculcate a good deal of new information in him, so that he would have the opportunity to make his conclusions. But he also did his part by acting quickly and decisively This was after he had compared all the information he had gathered with what I had told him, after the archaeologists had shown him the dolmen closest to the road and he discovered that there were others, but that they had fallen into ruin for lack of proper attention from the local residents. The local people had never been much interested in them.

“‘Vladimir then did something that might seem incredible. In three months he managed to change the attitude of the local residents toward the dolmens. They began bringing flowers. The women ethnographers of the Gelendzhik museum

set up a public association, which they called ‘Anastasia” in my honour. This association opened a school for tour-guides in order to get the right message out to tourists about the dolmens, so they would preserve and take care of the dolmens instead of destroying them. In addition, they began organising new tours, which they called “Excursions into reason”.2

“‘The tour-guides at Gelendzhik began telling everyone about the significance of our pristine origins and about the works of the Grand Creator — about Nature.’

“Anastasia, do you think this was all because ofhim? Didn’t you play a part here?’

“‘If I could have done as much as this without him, I would have done it long ago. I very much wanted to. It is in one of the distant dolmens in these mountains that my foremother’s flesh approached its death.’

“‘But how? How did one man, a nobody, manage to change people’s attitudes in so short a time? And how could he have set up such an active association? You say that the local residents had access to scientific materials and all sorts of publications, since people knew about them at the museums. But they didn’t pay any attention.’

“‘That is correct: they knew about them but did not pay attention.’

“‘But why did they then listen to him? How did he manage to pull it off? Yiu can’t change people’s consciousness that quickly’

“‘But Vladimir did not know that. He did not know that consciousness cannot be changed quickly, and that is why he acted and, in fact, changed it. Go visit that city, ask the different people who joined this association. Find out how and why fortune smiled on Vladimir.

 

Association”. He agreed to the name when they asked him about it. I thought he did it for me, that he was beginning to understand me and love me. And he really has managed to grasp a great deal, but he has not fallen in love with me. He has not done so because of my many mistakes and transgressions.

‘“I soon began to figure this out. I began to realise that my dream was actually coming true. And that people would indeed be transported across the dark forces’ window of time. And that people would be happy! What I dreamt about would come true, except that my love for him was not to be requited. And this was payment for the many mistakes I had made, my lack of perfection and my own insufficient purity of thought.’

“‘What happened? What made you come to that conclusion?’ Boris Moiseevich queried. ‘In any case, everybody’s known for a long time how coarse and uncivilised this fellow is. Believe me, Anastasia, as your senior and as the father of a family, I can tell you that your parents would not have approved of such a union.’

“‘I beg you, do not talk that way about one who is so dear to me. Regardless of how coarse Vladimir may appear to some people, I know differently.’

‘“What else is there to know about him? Everybody knows what kind of people entrepreneurs are,  and he’s just a typical example of the species, that’s clear to all. Anastasia, I must say you have a rather biassed opinion of Vladimir.’

“‘No matter, it is still my opinion. Besides, your assumption regarding my parents’ views is wrong.’”