Читать книгу Tales Written by the Dying in Awe - Vysheslav Filevsky - Страница 21

“Teacher,” I said, “I see that people commit moral crimes, and yet heaven does not punish them.”

“First of all, what is a moral crime?” the teacher asked.

“They say that objective values exist. Violation of these values is the crime. It is as if a man must pay for such transgressions with his fate, his health, the health of his children, and so on. Although often that does not happen.”

“Not everything is so simple,” the teacher said. “In society there coexist various groups of people with very different values. What is a moral crime to one group is not a crime to another group. The crime can even be a virtue.

“A problem arises if a person’s action is considered a crime in the group of people among which he is forced to exist. Then, in order to help him, his conscience proposes a lie and impudence.”

“I know that a lie is almighty. But impudence – ”

“In this case, impudence is very important,” the teacher said. “But certainly, a criminal needs to possess a quirky consciousness. Some of them are provided by heaven with such. So they prosper though they behave impudently.”

“But why does heaven do that?” I asked.

“Let us not fornicate by thoughts. First of all, a criminal with a quirky consciousness creates a myth for himself, according to which he did not commit any crime, but on the contrary, the crime was committed by his victim. The man memorizes his story. He repeatedly circulates it through his conscience, and he starts to believe it. Then, without reddened cheeks of shame, he tells the story to surrounding people. He even tells it in the temple and obtains “absolution of sins’!

“Besides, with the aid of his impudence, a criminal protects his consciousness from any remorse. As for the people in this criminal’s community, it is of no use for them to appeal to his conscience. When the man is fully accustomed to the myth he has created, believing himself absolutely right and noble and cruelly cheated by the person against whom he committed the moral crime, he creates a powerful psychological protection for himself. This protection enables him to live well, sometimes even leading an existence of full value.

“Think what would happen without lies and impudence. A criminal would perish, consumed by remorse. Things used to take place exactly this way. But now people say that the thing of highest value in the world is a human life.”

“Well, then, what changed?” I asked.

“Now there is no single morality; there are no approximately similar ethical attitudes, even inside of one country. Generally, a person can do almost everything. So under these conditions, a deceitful and impudent one survives and wins.”

“Well, what about you?”

“My fate is sad,” the teacher said. “I am overfed with communication from deceitful and impudent ones. But no one can say what echo lies and impudence would make on the fate of the confessor’s soul after the body’s death. After all, a man burrows into his myth so deeply that he is even confident of his well-being in the afterlife too. Meanwhile, what would the supreme being’s judgment be? How will it treat the lie and the impudence? We would not learn about it.”

“But how to live, then? Where is the anchorage? What can be a support?”

“Love heaven selflessly, and give awe and reverence to the Most High and its creations. Then you will be protected against lies and impudence, these new virtues, and you will always act in the correct way. However, forgive me; I said nothing to you.”