Читать книгу Tales Written by the Dying in Awe - Vysheslav Filevsky - Страница 14

A herd of rams ran. They were happy because they ran on a unanimous impulse. In their path, a precipice yawned. Most of the rams noticed it only in their last instant, when it was already impossible to stop. They fell and perished.

But two rams felt wrong beforehand, and they wanted to be saved. One of them resisted the flow of the herd, but he was trampled to death under hoof.

Another ram ran closer to the edge of the herd. He broke out of the flux just meters from the precipice. In horror, he looked at the steep drop and then at his compatriots, and he bleated desperately, “Stop, everyone! There is the death beyond!” But as they passed by, the others looked at him as at a betrayer, a renegade, an idiot.

So in this way, the herd perished. The surviving ram stayed alone and fell into contemplation. Which is better, a lonely life or a death in happy unanimity with mad compatriots? The survivor loved his folk very deeply. Over time, his torment of conscience that he did not share his herd’s fate became more and more cruel. One day, he could longer stand the loneliness. So the survivor ran and jumped from the same precipice below which his compatriots had died. He cried with happiness as he flew down; he was with his herd again.

Of course, everyone knows that there was another surviving ram. Escaping from the doomed herd, he enjoyed life. But this does not fit into the story of unity with the other rams.