The count showed to Holmes copies of the first page of the paper “Trud” (“Labour”) #107 (19554) by May 9, 1985; the ninth page of the weekly “Argumenty i Fakty” (“Arguments and Facts”) #43 (836) by October of 1996 and the first page of “Chas Pick” #151 (880) by October 14, 1997.
Look, Mr. Holmes, don’t you find anything strange at these photos of superior leaders of Soviet Union?
Frankly speaking, if there weren’t that white arrow, marking the half-head of Gorbachev in “Arguments and Facts”, I wouldn’t notice it in “Trud”. But how do this pictures connected to the “picnics” and moreover to the tragedy of “black Tuesday”?
And here is the full photography of the first page of “Trud” by May 9, 1985:
The count settled back in his redwood armchair with an elegant carving and, refreshing in his memory pictures of the past, started his story, which made a grate noise in arts patrons’ society.
* * *
I found this package with “picnics” and copies of some other papers inside my letterbox at 17 of August in year 1998. I remember this date well because of the financial crisis in Russia reported by every television channel. Looking through the “picnics” I firstly thought that someone was trying to play a trick on me, since I never considered myself a specialist in solving riddles. But those, who had sent the package, obviously knew of my enthusiasm on paints and the first item I read was evidently the article about the restoration of Rembrandt’s “Danaë”. That pearl from the Hermitage collection had been nearly completely destroyed by one maniac on 15 of June 1985, only 37 days after the appearance of the sinister picture of General Secretary’s half-head in holiday’s essay of “Trud”. Many foreign specialists told that the paint couldn’t be restored. That maniac made two knife strikes and than threw a concentrated sulphuric acid grout to it. I remember, that when I had got know of that act of terrorism act against Rembrandt’s masterpiece I at first even fell ill because of high pressure. And that day I saw the Petersburg’s paper “Chas Pick” #151(880) by October 14 from which I got know that on the day festival of the Protection of the Virgin[34] the noticeable exhibition, called “‘Danaë’ – Rembrandt’s masterpiece’s destiny” was going to open. The paint had been restored, and I considered that event to have a mystical sense.
Mr. Holmes, you have asked if it is connected with “Trud’s” picture and with the “picnics” and moreover with the terrorism of 9.11 – that’s how does the day is written in Europe and America? I think that it is, but to explain this mystical relationship I need to remind the legend of Danaë and her son Perseus.
Danaë was a daughter of king of Argos – Acrisius, to whom the Delphi’s Oracle had predicted to be killed by his own grandson. Acrisius imprisoned his maiden daughter to an underground bronze tower to avoid such a destiny. But the Zeus, the Olympus’s Lord, became enamoured to her. He had reached her in a form of a golden rain, after what the futures hero of the ancient Greek mythology Perseus was born. Acrisius put his daughter and her son into a barrel and threw them to the sea. Great Pushkin has originally described the development of this myth in his “Tale of Tsar Sultan, his son Guidon and fair Princess Lebed’”, removing the tragic final from it. I consider that Pushkin tried to correct the catastrophes repeating scenario, which is peculiar to the whole so-called Christian culture. As you can remember the Danaë’s myth finishes too tragically for Acrisius. After a long journey and many great deeds Perseus had arrived to Argos to take part in the Olympic Games. There on a disk throwers competition he… снёс полбашни (these words the count said on Russian, though he generally told the story in English, so he retold quickly), sorry, pulled down a half of his grandfather’s head.
How do you think, Mr. Holmes, why one year before the “Chas Pick” reported of the restoration of the Rembrandt’s masterpiece in October 1996 one of the most wide read newspaper in Russia – “Arguments and Facts”, had carried back to the main symbol of “Danaë’s” myth?
I can hardly say anything and I would like to have a pleasure to hear your version.
I consider, – continued Pfanfaltz, – the real causes and sources of the “black Tuesday’s” tragedy couldn’t be explained from the defective materialistic or from equally defective idealistic point of view of modern average man. Yes, there of course was a terrorist plan, there were kamikaze-terrorists, but all of them including undercover scenarists were only the executors realizing some enveloping matrix-scenario, tracing its roots back to the distant past of the modern civilization, and moreover may be even the preceding – existing before the Flood – culture, which reflection we can see in ancient myths and legends. Symbolic and figurative part of these myths has incarnated in the cultural monuments on which many generations of great sculptors, artists, architects, composers, and also poets, writers, dramatists worked on.
As I see it, the world is one and indivisible, unified and complete, everything in the world is in cause-and-effect relationship. This may mean the only thing: any casual event comes as the casual only because we aren’t able to see the previous, the preceding events, and also the consequent events that are produced by this event.
The reorganization and cutting of the Russian Empire in its USSR bounds (named Perestroika) has begun under Gorbachev and that improper deed was immediately “casually” reflected in the mythological symbol – half-scull of “Perestroika-foreman” showed to more than 200 millions of Soviet people at the sacred day of nearly each Russian in the world – the Victory Day, the day of victory over the fascism, which was equated to the German nazism in the middle of the 20th century. What could the appearance of this symbol on the first page oh one of the most wide-printed papers in USSR mean?
As I understand it, it was the Danaë’s myth matrix algorithm activation inspired by somebody. Different people take the activation process differently; the vast majority doesn’t notice it at all. But in distant past as well as in our technocratic times all over the world, and particularly in Russia, there were those who took, as one can call it so, the excited state of energy-pumped matrixes very painfully. Early they were called “God’s fools” or fools “in Christ”; today they usually become the patients of psychiatrists. They take the “destructive matrix algorithm activation by pumping it with energy”, as the normal man will feel the pain of the salt in his wound. Mr. Holmes, have you seen the film “Matrix” or you have considered the watching of it to be just a wasting of your time?
Yes, count, I’ve seen it and even have read an interesting analytic article devoted to it. And why do you ask?
Because one of the characters answered the question of what the Matrix was, in such way: “the Matrix is everywhere”. One, as he or she sees, can’t touch it, can’t see, hear or smell it, but, nonetheless, he or she can feel its influence in the way I can’t understand. My perception of the world is based on the same five feelings by which anyone makes his conception of the objective reality. Probably it can be felt by the sixth feeling that one knows of but seldom uses – the sense of proportion[35]. And exactly this hypertrophied feeling is taken as schizophrenia in the modern culture, which is based on “Oedipus complex”.