“Yes, it’s true,” I replied.
“Well, if you’re not in the mood, I could do it for you,” he said, brightening.
“Fine. It’s all yours,” I replied.
“I’ll do it this evening,” he said. By now he had thrown off the last traces of his despondency and, nodding once again in the direction of the editor’s office, he muttered: “Goatibexation! Some people play around with words; others get things done.”
Later that same afternoon a terrible thing happened to me as I was walking along the main street of town. A man wearing a brand new suit was standing near me on the sidewalk, gazing into the display window of a department store. Behind the window stood several mannequins. These mannequins were dressed exactly like the man — so much so, in fact, that I couldn’t help thinking how alike they were. But no sooner had this thought flashed through my mind than one of the mannequins began to move. I was stunned though at the same time I had enough common sense to realize that this must be some sort of hallucination. Mannequins don’t move — we haven’t yet come to that.
But before I could collect my thoughts any further, the mannequin that had begun to stir suddenly defied all laws of nature by turning on its heels and walking calmly away. I was still recovering from this shock, when suddenly the other mannequins began to stir. They stirred for a moment, then they too turned on their heels and followed calmly after the first one.
Only after they had all come out onto the street did I realize that this conspiracy of mannequins was merely some sort of optical illusion which had been intensified by my fatigue, nerves, and who knows what else. For what I had taken to be a department store was actually a glass partition, and the people whom I had taken for mannequins had merely been standing on the other side of the glass wall.
I need a breath of fresh air, otherwise I’ll go mad, I thought to myself as I hastily directed my steps toward the sea.
I have always hated mannequins. Ever since childhood the very sight of them has filled me with loathing and disgust, and even now I fail to understand why such an abomination is tolerated. For a mannequin is quite a different thing from a scarecrow, which does at least have some character of its own. And while the scarecrow may frighten children for a short time and birds for a somewhat longer time, still it does not really offend us. There is, on the other hand, something brazen and vile in the mannequin’s striking resemblance to man.
Do you really believe that the mannequin’s only function is to model a suit of clothes? Don’t be naive! The mannequin wants to prove to us that it is possible to be a human being even when lacking a soul. Moreover, he urges us to follow his example. And by always modeling the latest fashions, he seems cynically to suggest that it is he who points the way to the future.
But we can’t accept his future because we want our own, human future.
When I gaze into a dog’s eyes, I find something resembling a human look, and I respect this look. I see the millions of years that separate us, but at the same time I see that the dog has a soul, a certain shared humanity. The dog seems to sense this common humanity and to respond to it. Undoubtedly it is the dog’s capacity to respond to us as humans which evokes a similar responsiveness in us and, in fact, strengthens our own humanity. For when a dog barks joyfully at our approach, we instinctively respond and our hand reaches out to pat him.
I admire the parrot’s talents — its vocal cords and its mechanical memory — but the parrot is far behind the dog. The parrot is interesting and exotic, but the dog is beautiful.
We are often willing to use an imprecise word to designate the essence of something. But even if we manage to be precise in our designation, the essence itself may change, while its designation, the word, still continues to be used, preserving not the essence, but only its outward form, just as an empty pod preserves the rounded contours of the long-discarded peas. Errors of terminology or of perception — and usually we are guilty of both — lead in the end to a confusion of concepts. And in the last analysis, a confusion of concepts is but a natural outgrowth of our indifference — our insufficient concern for the essence of the concept, or insufficient love. For is not love the highest form of concern?
Sooner or later we are forced to pay for our indifference. And only then, still nursing our bruises, do we begin to call things by their right names. In the meantime we continue to confuse parrots with prophets simply because we have given little or no thought to the subject of man and the source of his greatness. Why — because we have little respect for ourselves, for those around us, and for life itself.
About three days later I happened to be eating lunch in the same outdoor café, when who should appear but Vakhtang Bochua. Dressed in a spanking-white suit and as rosy-cheeked as ever, he was a radiant vision of pink and white. Accompanying him were an elderly gentleman and a woman who was dressed with the gay abandon of a fortuneteller. Catching sight of me, Vakhtang halted.
“How did the lecture go?” I asked.
“The collective farmers were moved to tears,” he replied with a smile. “Oh, and by the way, you owe me a bottle of champagne.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard!” he exclaimed in surprise. “It was yours truly who dragged you out from under the wheels of history. Avtandil Avtandilovich wanted to bid you farewell, but I told him it would be over my dead body.”
“What was his reaction to that?” I asked.
“He accepted the fact that this was one place where the wheels of history were going to get stuck,” said Vakhtang. Then, giving his mighty stomach a loving pat, he added: “You’ve been granted a stay of execution.”
He stood before me ruddy, portly, smiling and invulnerable. He himself seemed rather amazed at his own boundless capacities and now was eagerly trying to think of something else with which to impress me.
“Do you know who they are?” he asked with a slight nod in the direction of his companions. The latter had already taken a table and from their seats were casting fond glances at Vakhtang.
“No,” I answered.
“My friend, Professor (he gave his name), the world-famous mineralogist, and with him his favorite student. By the way, he’s given me a collection of Caucasian minerals.”
“How come?” I asked.
“I don’t know myself,” replied Vakhtang, throwing up his hands in mock despair. “I guess he just likes me. I’ve been taking him around to different historical sites.”
“Vakhta-a-ang, we miss you,” the favorite student drawled capriciously.
Even the professor was gazing in our direction with an affectionate smile. He was casually garbed in linen trousers and sandals, and his long legs protruded from under the table like those of some lanky, absentminded adolescent.
“And that’s not all,” said Vakhtang, still smiling. And shrugging his shoulders as if to express his amazement at the vagaries of human behavior, he added: “He’s even promised to leave me his library.”
“Well, see that you don’t do him in for the sake of his wealth,” I said.
“What do you mean!” protested Vakhtang with a smile. “Why, he means as much to me as my own father…”
“Greetings to our golden youth,” interjected Solomon Markovich, suddenly appearing from out of nowhere. He stood before us — small, wrinkled and alcoholically preserved for life in his quiet but persistent sorrow.
“My dear Vakhtang,” said Solomon Markovich, “I’m an old man. I don’t need a hundred grams of vodka; a mere fifty will do.”