CHAPTER 26. VIA DOLOROSA.

February 26, 1616.

“…Dark clouds are enveloping the heavens. I feel the heavy, leaden drops of an impersonal rain upon my body—I feel their coldness: the crowd that surrounds me now, however, does not feel this cold—it feels heat, it is boiling, it is burning! Myriads of processes occur in this world for the rain to fall in this exact place, with this exact amount of moisture, and in this exact manner. Our world is intricate, but many refuse to understand this… just as that crowd refuses to understand the truth, and consequently, the objective, independent reality! The heated crowd will never know that same cold, which at this very moment is so purposefully and persistently affecting all the members of my body, and what's more important, all the particles and atoms of my soul—a cold, which, in turn, was nothing more or less than the direct harbinger of my imminent demise. The crowd is always safe: it is not judged—it is the individual, the person, the man who is judged. The crowd never bears responsibility for its actions—when it commits evil deeds, it always dresses itself in the garments of the “will of the people”… How magnificent is the sky! Where the crowd sees darkness, I discern light—but when I look at the crowd, I see darkness! No, I cannot look at those who are unable to grasp obvious things—I cannot look at those who, gazing at a leaden, entirely cloud-shrouded sky, see impenetrable darkness, but by no means a radiant light! Do the stars and the Sun cease to radiate their light simply because we cannot see them at a given moment?! Just because I have closed my eyes, do the Sun and stars not shine?!... My bare feet at times strike the sharp-edged cobblestones—it causes me indescribable pain: I walk incessantly, gradually, getting closer and closer to my Golgotha. At this moment, I begin to realize what feelings Jesus felt when he bore the inhuman burden of human sin on his human shoulders—on my shoulders at this moment lies a similar cross: responsibility to future generations, responsibility to humanity, responsibility to myself! No! It was many times harder for Jesus—he carried that burden on his own: my cross was already set up—how is a gallows better than a cross and how is a cross better than a gallows?! Their fate is one and that fate is death! Unhurriedly, savoring every second of a life predetermined by someone and deliberately postponing the moments so agonizing for my consciousness, I move closer and closer to my scaffold, constantly picturing in my mind the image of Jesus Christ. Was he truly as I imagine him now? Was he truly as he is depicted in icons or even paintings? In every person's mind, Jesus looks different, just as in every person's mind, love looks different! And so, I mentally address the crowd with the command to imagine love in their minds, to personify, to bring this word to life: “A woman!”—someone will exclaim to me… “A child!”, “A flower!”, “Money!”, “Myself!”, “God!”… The sky! Studying the stars day and night, I have only just now grasped how far they are from us—how distant their light is from us! But the fact that I am far from them does not prevent me from studying them and admiring their light, does it?! Should I reside on their flesh and matter or draw closer to them to understand their nature, their essence, and their being?! No! Like an immortal wanderer, I instantly move in my consciousness through the spaces of the Universe, now approaching the essence of those stars, now moving away from it—nothing restrains me and nothing gives me absolute freedom! While I was within the confines of my study, I visited hundreds of thousands of stars and saw hundreds of thousands of worlds—I saw them not only by gazing into my telescope but even when I closed my well-worn eyes for a few moments. My consciousness incessantly drew a map of the Universe in my being, permanently adding those missing details and particles that for one reason or another my eye did not remember—I see, I see! One more moment, it would seem, and I would have seen what lies, what is hidden behind that dark stellar veil—one more moment and I will tear off this shroud, I will reveal to this world what humanity has so persistently tried to comprehend from the very beginning of its existence! Yes! To reason about the stars, to visit their confines, one does not have to be God!..

Someone from the crowd tripped me. I fell. People are laughing at me… No, they are laughing at themselves! It is not I who will die today—today, having lost me, they will perish! A swarm of bees! A family of ants! The crowd, like any primitive beast, lives by instincts! It has no feelings, just as it has no thoughts! My tears are dew for a stony soil, but by no means dew for the fields! The crowd! It is drawn to death—it rushes to it like a moth to a flame! It comes here in the name of death! And yet, what is surprising, the crowd, which in a single moment is capable of destroying my flesh, does not do it with its own hands—it enjoys watching the executioner raise the axe, it enjoys being a witness to murder, but not a murderer! Something holds it back from instantly tearing me to shreds—it cannot cross certain boundaries! Determined by whom?! Among others, by power! The crowd can only be held in check by power and force—if power and force did not exist in the world, then, I daresay I agree with Hugo Grotius, humanity would commit suicide by creating a war of all against all! How amazing! A hundred armed men hold tens of thousands in fear! What is this, if not an aquarium with water? Water possesses truly great power, but thin glass restrains its nature and emotions! The crowd! Looking at it—I laugh! Its furious faces do not awaken fear in my soul—they furiously crave my death, and I laugh in response! I am not afraid of the crowd—only nature can awaken genuine fear in a person! The crowd is a spiderweb! The weak get entangled in its matter—but the strong tear through its bonds as if they weren't there at all! The crowd is chaos! A collection of many homogeneous atoms and materials—and yet it consists of separate, specific parts, which, in turn, think separately and individually: each of them separately has its own joys and its own tragedies, just as their collective has a common joy and a common tragedy. The crowd is the Ship of Theseus! Although it constantly acts in the same way, it is never the same! It is exceptionally diverse in its uniformity! The crowd is meadow grasses! Among its waters, it is impossible to find those very flowers that grow on flowerbeds and in gardens—flowers like roses, nasturtiums, petunias, and asters!