CHAPTER 18. THE RORSCHACH TEST.

February 18, 1943.

This day was fundamentally different from the other days when Leander Sternberg had been to the Berlin Sportpalast—it was a special day!... and what made it special was by no means the people who now filled this modern Colosseum, but the spirit that it was completely sparkling with today: from the strict and straightforward grey-blue stands, scarlet banners descended quite submissively, in the center of which was a black, ebony-like swastika; in the center of the hall, a one-headed eagle soared, its fierce gaze deliberately directed to the East; under the arch of the palace was a slogan that, indeed, required no mention—on this day, the Berlin Sportpalast really looked like a church, for it deeply contained and invariably radiated a truly sacred sacrality. The monotony of the tones prevailing in this building, from the shades of animated matter to lifeless matter, could indeed be extremely tiring for the unsophisticated eye of any person who lived in any other state, of course, not subject to the influence of the corresponding ideas of that time, but not in Germany in 1943.

A frail man of short stature ascended the podium—Joseph Goebbels. Behind him, with outstretched wings, a straight-lined eagle proudly soared—Joseph Goebbels began to broadcast. “The great eagle of the Third Reich now broadcasts through the mouth of our no less great Reich Chancellor…”—faintly passed through the hall. And yet, being behind the eagle, Joseph Goebbels was by no means under its protection—the wings of that eagle strove to the West and to the East, they in no way protected what belonged to them in their embrace: and were they even capable of embracing?! All eyes with indescribable attention were fixed on the mouth of that orator—they absorbed every word of this man with the very sinful thirst that is called gluttony in Christianity. A smug smirk instantly spread across Goebbels's face—he once again felt and confirmed his power over the people present before his face: a shepherd feels such power, surveying the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of his flock. Leander Sternberg was an integral part of that flock.

As soon as the first words of this truly momentous speech rang out, the aforementioned blood-born German, located in the eighteenth row of the Berlin Sportpalast, hastily took a certain angular object out of his own pocket—someone, from the representatives of the German nation surrounding that man at that hour, would undoubtedly, looking at the gloomy leather cover with a swastika and an eagle, think that this object was a notebook: does he really want to subsequently awaken in his memory the very speech that, of course, will forever go down in the history of mankind, which is history itself?! Very confidently opening the gates of this no more and no less than a logically folded collection of matter, Leander Sternberg immediately cast his penetrating gaze on the very text, once printed in a small font, which, in turn, contained a rather chaotic collection of the immaterial—it was The Sermon on the Mount by Jesus Christ. Hastily flipping through a couple of pages extraordinarily filled with meaning, he distinguished within this book several sheets, both absolutely snow-white and completely smeared with various figures—it must be noted that Leander Sternberg loved to draw: “To smear the fragile cold of the finest material with my crude human thoughts!”—this is how he called the process of drawing.

— I see thousands of German women in the Sportpalast. There are both young people and old people. Not a single class, not a single profession, not a single age was left without an invitation. I can say with complete confidence that a representative sample of the German population has gathered before me—from both the rear and the front. Is this so? Yes or no? —Goebbels said with exceptional sforzando to those whose minds were no stronger than the walls of the glorious Jericho.

At that moment, Leander Sternberg, with nothing but unshakable calmness, took a pencil in his hands and immediately began to move it along the pure whiteness of a thin sheet, having previously placed it on the following text of the very book that was mentioned earlier and which now served as a kind of easel for him: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by people.” Leander Sternberg made the first sketches.

— First! The English claim that the German people have lost faith in victory. I ask you: do you believe, together with the Führer and us, in the complete and final victory of the German people? —these words of the Reich Chancellor sounded like shots, but it was by no means a chaotic automatic burst, but extremely aimed shots from a Mauser. Under Leander Sternberg’s pencil, through the prism of the not-so-virginal purity of the sheet, were the following words from the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

— Second. The English say that the German people are tired of fighting. I ask you: are you ready to follow the Führer as a phalanx of the rear, standing behind the fighting army, and wage war with fanatical determination, despite any turns of fate, until victory is ours? —said the one who was a man of his time and served it very well.

Leander Sternberg continued to draw, unconsciously leaving a corresponding trace on the next text of his pocket Bible: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”