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The silent, warm summer night has long entered its sovereign rights, relieving the bustling day with all its important and troublesome running about. Its deep, dark veil was calming and sweetly lulling all living beings, slowly submerging them into a deep sleep. This charm didn’t affect only hearts in love, for whom eternity seemed to pass in one instant. On the sea shore, in an uninhabited place, a lonely fire crackled, casting mysterious shadows. A formless creature sat alone in front of it. Its only witness was an infinite universe, brightly illuminated by starlit worlds, and the moon, inviting eternity with its silvery sparkling path on the water surface. All around was such a stillness that even the sea couldn’t dare to disturb it with the soft noise of its waves. Time seemed to have stopped, losing all its meaning. It was the moment of eternity.
The creature started to move, making strange sounds, and slowly divided itself into two stirring parts. Human speech could be heard in the air, “God, how good can it be sometimes in this sinful world.”
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Kostya nodded uncertainly. It seemed to hurt his pride even more. So, for the next twenty minutes we witnessed a grand battle with aphorisms, quotes, sayings of native and foreign writers, poets, philosophers, scientists, and I didn’t even know most of their names. Meanwhile, I was trying hard to join this dialogue with my essential question, and I was impatient to ask it. But Sensei’s polemics with our ‘Philosopher’ flew uninterrupted, gradually reaching its culmination. I have already got completely angry with Kostya that he took such priceless time just to satisfy his mania of brilliant erudition. But he was so possessed by the discussion that it seemed nothing else in the world existed for him.
At the very end, already coming to the tram stop, after probably going through all his memory, he recited his favorite expression. “Well, as Villon said, ‘I know all, save myself.’”
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