CHAPTER 16. THE SHADOW OF GLORY.

January 16, 2019.

The great and, consequently, faceless crowd was relentlessly raging near the Royal Theatre on London's Haymarket street—it was waiting with indescribable impatience for a mysterious man, a mysterious magician, to appear before its eyes, a man who not only had the power to produce instrumental music from a cane for every gentleman present in those places, but also, what was quite amazing, to naturally appear inside a completely unremarkable wine bottle. But could it, was it able to grasp that the aforementioned mysterious man, that mysterious magician, who knew a lot and therefore had a lot of power, wasn't delayed for reasons unknown to it, but, albeit in the most secretive way, was, nonetheless, present near it? He was hidden from the crowd's gaze—he was invisible, like a sylph. His attire was by no means his dark cloak of extraordinarily expensive cloth, but, it should be noted, a shadow no less dark than the aforementioned cloak. No! This man was a far more skilled, and also more sophisticated, magician than the one mentioned earlier—he was more skilled and more sophisticated because he had created, with the help of his imagination, the existence of the aforementioned being. He was capable of much deeper tricks than those his thoughts had anonymously mentioned in "The Gentleman's Magazine"—he performed them with such ease and grace that people couldn't help but believe his, it must be noted, not-un-artful fabrications. In this, he was like the discoverers of all kinds of, including the most widespread, world religions. Thus, with the help of his extraordinary mind, it was he who, under the pretext of presenting the most exquisite and exceptional spectacles by a mysterious magician, both formed, organized, and united the aforementioned crowd, which included not only simple, ordinary folk but also, importantly, a most aristocratic people—dukes, lords, and their wives and children. He, no more and no less, slyly, with great curiosity, watched the very crowd that had been created by his own will: he was satisfied, and his heart was filled with joy. But why? Perhaps it was because he had managed, in a most extraordinary way, to achieve a flawless victory in a well-known bet with a certain duke, no less noble than himself? Or perhaps it was because he had now fully realized the true power of his mind, and consequently, his own greatness? It's quite likely! He was able to secretly, invisibly control people—he was able to do so because his mind, as well as his flesh, was extraordinarily rich: his mind possessed considerable knowledge of human nature—his flesh, in turn, possessed extraordinarily shining minerals from the nature of the earth. He knew perfectly well what the crowd wanted—it was this understanding that allowed him to perform what London's Haymarket street was now witnessing, so effortlessly and swiftly. This was a most exceptional kind of, if not a provocation, then certainly, a manipulation. But didn't he want to show people what they so furiously craved? They craved to be deceived—he deceived them! Desiring to see tricks, and consequently artful deceptions, they saw them without the slightest suspicion—each of them wanted to participate in at least one trick of that mysterious man: they didn't suspect at all that each of them was the main character of a more massive and deeper trick. As if bringing those people closer to what they desired, he himself was swiftly approaching what he desired—stubbornly following their natural desires, those people, indeed, didn't realize even for a moment that they were nothing more and nothing less than a obedient tool in a certain, extraordinarily intellectual game of a supremely rational gentleman: they felt a sense of free will, but their will was already subordinated to another's will, a stronger and more skillful one—the will of the magician... that very magician who was invisible... that very magician who at that hour was in the shadow! Was he mocking them? Perhaps. But could those people mock him? Absolutely not! For how can one mock someone they don't know?... how can one mock someone they don't see?... how can one mock someone whose will they blindly follow?

The crowd! The great, faceless crowd! It believed, sincerely believed in that very miracle which, for some reason, for the sake of amusement, was created by no more and no less than one single person—it most sincerely considered that miracle to be a truth, a reality! Could one single person have believed in it? Perhaps. Of course, if his being subjected all the available facts that preceded this event, as well as those that were born during it, to healthy skepticism—it must be noted that the combination of these facts involuntarily, or perhaps even intentionally, created, indeed, considerable, undoubtedly in their quality, contradictions, disagreements, and inconsistencies. The crowd! It was weak-minded, yet, at that very hour, it was extraordinarily strong in its madness! It was for this reason that it fell into the aforementioned kind of snares—those very snares that were deliberately, consciously placed in that place by a certain, already well-known hunter. The crowd! It was weaker than one person, and one person was significantly stronger than the crowd—and he now, if not to everyone, then certainly to himself, had proven it. Being at this moment within the domain of the ethereal shadow, and also contemplating with great curiosity those very truly exceptional results that were a very natural, and consequently logical, consequence of his previous actions, he, indeed, without the slightest suspicion himself, was the creator of perhaps one of the greatest experiments, or rather, one of the greatest discoveries, in human history—with the help of human society, he proved certain laws of physics: a river, with the exception of special circumstances, and consequently under ordinary, natural conditions, cannot, is unable to leave the strictly designated boundaries of its channel—the sea, however, has no channel, and therefore it is often in a state of chaos; the movement of a river is determined by its channel—the movement of the sea is undefinable, it is often controlled only by the unquenchable winds that for some reason or even for some purpose appear to its existence. The crowd is chaos, it is facelessness, it is dependence! Individuality, however, is harmony, it is all-encompassing, it is freedom! Didn't Duke Montague prove this to us now? He grouped, in a very skillful way, he grouped the element, and also, no less importantly, he swiftly turned it, under the pretext of satisfying its own needs, as if they were extraordinarily important and no less significant, to his side—he covertly, invisibly, and very cunningly forced that crowd to perform those very actions that were aimed at the swift achievement of his, seemingly, insignificant, ordinary goals, one of which was a flawless victory in a dispute with a certain extraordinarily noble duke: he thought deeply and unconventionally, and therefore he was well aware of the insignificance and ordinariness of those very goals of his that were most directly connected with winning the dispute—didn't he intentionally create that dispute, which... perhaps was nothing more and nothing less than just a pretext for more complex and, no less importantly, more serious undertakings, and consequently intentions? Perhaps that duke, who had already lost, was intentionally, deliberately provoked into this bet, and therefore, without suspecting it himself and continuously defending his own, not only material but also, what is very important, moral interests, he was happy, happy because he realized the indisputability of his success, which, in fact, was nothing more and nothing less than a defeat predetermined by another duke—fervently believing in his success, and therefore being extraordinarily happy, that duke had no idea that he had already lost this bet long ago. Didn't ordinary people in this sublunary world—those very people who, now continuously creating chaos, were nothing more and nothing less than naturally experiencing exclusively sincere fear, for the crowd is always, truly, always characterized by fear of something, undoubtedly, unknown and incomprehensible to it: it, relentlessly and, no less importantly, unconsciously striving to be frightened, swiftly rebelled when that fear was taken away from it—also reason about a snowfall, classifying that phenomenon as a series of random, unexpected, sudden, and unpredictable events: they classify it as such when countless factors testified to its appearance long before its arrival—countless of those very factors that were invisible to the human eye, or were incomprehensible to the human mind. Unable to identify, comprehend, or even distinguish those factors, people most sincerely and, no less importantly, most naively believe that they do not exist at all—it must be admitted that this kind of ignorance was inherent in people up to the very moment when they managed to invent the microscope: with the acquisition of this discovery, human eyes opened significantly—but how significantly?