The Final Circle of Paradise

I was cleaning up in the bath and thinking that with this, my work in the Council was coming to an end, and another kind of work was beginning – which I did not know how to begin. I would have liked to include myself in the blockade planning, not because I considered it necessary, but because it was so simple, so much more simple than to return to people their souls which had been devoured by affluence, and to teach each one to think of world problems in the same way as his own personal ones.

"Isolate this pus bag from the rest of the world, isolate it totally, that's the total of our philosophy," orated Matia.

That was aimed at me. But perhaps not even me. For Matia was a brilliant mind. He understood too well that isolation was always a defense, but here we had to attack. But he knew how to advance only with squads, and this was embarrassing to him.

To rescue. For how long would you need rescuing? When would you learn to rescue yourselves? Why were you eternally harkening to priests, fascists, demagogues, and imbecile Opirs?

Why didn't you want to exert your brains? Why did you resist thinking so? Why couldn't you understand that the world is vast, complex, and fascinating? Why was everything simple and boring tc you? In what way did your mind differ from the mind of Rabelais, Swift, Lenin, Einstein, Makarenko, Hemingway, and Strogoff? Someday I would grow tired of all this. Someday when I had no more strength and conviction. For I was similar to you. But I wanted to help you, and you didn't want to help me…

Reg and Len came over after school, and Len said, "We have decided, Ivan. We will go to the Gobi Central." He had red fuzz on his lip and huge red hands, and I could see that it divas he who had thought up the Gobi trip, and quite recently – not more than ten minutes ago. Reg, as usual, was silent, chewing on a blade of grass and placidly studying me with his calm gray eyes. He has become altogether a square, I thought, and said, "Wonderful book, isn't it?" "Yes, indeed," said Len.

"We understood at once where we should go." Reg was quiet.

"Heat and stench are suspended in the shadow of these hard laboring dragons," I said from memory. "They devour everything under them – the ancient Mongolian prayer gate, the bones of a two-humped beast fallen in some sand storm…" "Yes," said Len, while Reg went on chewing his blade of grass. "Every time," I continued (now from Ichin-dagli), "that the sun arrives at a mathematically precise required position, a strange mirage blossoms out in the East – of a strange city with white towers which no one has yet seen in reality. " "One should see that with his own eyes," said Len, and laughed. "Friend Len," I said, "it's too fascinating and therefore too simple. You will see that it's too simple yourself and it will become an unpleasant disappointment." No, I hadn't said it right. "Friend Len," I said, "what sort of a mirage is that? Here is one.