Young man, do you think -- or I should say what do you
think -- please don't interrupt me, just listen --
imagine that tomorrow at twelve noon you are going to
take a revolver in your hand -- please don't interrupt
me... Let us suppose you then take the barrel and put
it in your mouth -- do you follow me? ...Let's say you
put it in. You put it in. So you've put it in. And as
soon as you've put it in, there's that moment. Let's
look at that moment philosophically. What is a moment
-- tick tock? Yes, tick tock. And between the tick and
the tock there's a barrier, yes a barrier, namely the
barrel of a gun. Do you understand? Here's the barrel,
here's the tick and there's the tock. On the tick
side, young man, there's still everything, on the tock
side there's already nothing. You squeeze the trigger
and there's a loud bang bang, and the first bang is
still tick but the second bang is already tock.
Everything that concerns the tick-bang I understand,
but the tock-bang is a complete mystery to me. Do you
understand? Tick and I'm still with myself and my wife
and my mother-in-law and the sun and the fresh air and
water -- that I can understand. Tock and I'm without
my wife -- though I can understand being without a
wife -- and I'm without a mother-in-law, and that too
I can understand completely, but to be without... say,
without a pipe, black tobacco, borscht, blue fish,
fresh cabbage, my fishing rod, my reversible coat,
summer, sunflower seeds, a hard bed, birch trees, to
be without myself? -- that I cannot understand at all.
How can I be without myself? Me, myself,
Podsekalnikov, a human being -- let's look at this
human being philosophically. Darwin proved to us, in
the language of dry statistics, that man is a cage,
please don't interrupt, I know what I'm saying, man is
a cage. And the soul languishes in this cage. That I
can understand. You shoot yourself, and that shot
breaks the cage and the soul flies out, and it flies
and flies and naturally as it's flying it's crying:
'Hosanna! Hosanna!' and naturally God calls it over
and asks: To whom do you belong? To Podsekalnikov. Did
you suffer? Yes... in that case go and have a good
time, and the soul begins to dance and sing, doesn't
it? All that I understand. How could I not understand
it!