“It’s always like this! As one French comedian said, ‘He has touched me all over! I’m only a target for his pointed arrows’.” Then, looking at his friend with reproach, he recited his pet poem which he usually used when he wanted to escape from a tickler, “I know, monsieur, how telltale you are. / Your head is chock-full with examples. / But isn’t it enough? Take care of yourself. / And give me away to my destiny.”
“Well, what can I say?” Andrew was at a loss. “A true diplo-mat! What I do respect him for is that when he abuses you, you feel pleased with the way he’s doing it.”
To that, Eugene grinned and cast a sidelong look at the priest, “Such evening as tonight can turn anyone into a skilled diplomat.”
Everybody laughed again. Yet, when the laughter ceased, a lasting pause set in. The people got reabsorbed in silent observation of the stars and the fire. Tongues of flame were ardently performing their charming dance to melodious crackle of burning brushwood. Such passion made shafts of sparkles fly up in a spinning whirlwind, continuing their rash “pas” in the darkness space. And this made them look like a multitude of tiny starlets living in their single inimitable instant.
Scrutinizing the celestial bodies, Nikolai Andreevich was the first one to disturb the silence.
“Indeed, the starts are extraordinary… It’s so incredible to think how many worlds are around us, how many galaxies living their own separate life, colliding, scattering, collapsing… Tremendous disasters happen somewhere out there, while somewhere else new forms of life are being born. And this entire life is permanently in full swing in this vast Universe. If you only imagine those enormous masses and sizes, those stupendous velocities of galaxies movement of several hundred kilometers per second, and this entire gigantic process, you automatically face a question: who are we at all, compared to these zillions of stars? Not even a flash… Yet, we are aware of this seething life. And we are not just aware, but we also perceive and study the processes of life creation and of such huge objects destruction. There is an impression that we are allowed to glance through a keyhole of the universe only with one eye, to see both the microcosm and the macrocosm.”
“Why with one eye?” Ruslan asked with a chuckle.
“Why do you ask why?” Kostya responded with humor. “Surely, in order to bate our curiosity to the way the others live. It is the eternal issue of domicile, really!”
Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said, “I believe, if it’s all about the issue of domicile, we would not be given such detailed information in formulas and figures, in thorough confirmations of the evident which are provided for human brain. A different question is more appropriate here: “What for?” Obviously, in order for us to understand something, something very important about ourselves, our essence, our nature…”
Father John nodded agreeing with him.
“Perhaps, the reason God doesn’t hide His keyholes from us is that He knows our nature and wants us to delve deeper into the laws of His creation ourselves, so that in execution of those laws we, as His children, could become participators of His perfect creation. In Bible, in the cathedral epistle of St. Jacob, chapter 1, line 25, there are the following remarkable words, ‘…the one who delves into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and resides in it, being not a forgetful listener, but an executor of deeds, will be blessed in his deeds’.”And, having finished the quotation, he supplemented his speech with an explanation, “He’ll be blessed, because he has understood the essence correctly.”
“Yea-а-аh,” Nikolai Andreevich drawled pensively, he then brightened, having recalled something, and addressed Sensei. “By the way, I had a unique patient, an astronomer. It was an ordinary depression case. He felt lonely because his wife had abandoned him for another man. So, the scientist quite interestingly expressed his mental state, associating it with the life of stars. The main thing was that he did have an understanding, though in a peculiar veiled form, that loneliness was actually an illusion of one’s mind, its fiction, for objectively a person was always socially surrounded. Thus, the feeling of loneliness appears mostly because of one’s inability to adapt oneself to society. The astronomer used to interpret his thoughts in the language of his profession. As he said, if we look at a star, it seems to be a lonely object. Yet, indeed, it’s only an illusion of our naked eye, for even modern telescopes distinguish three to five hundred stars in one such star.”
“Oh, there are even more interesting things than this!” Eugene waved his hand, demonstrating good knowledge of the subject. “If you take a modern microscope and examine this one…” his forefinger pointed at father, but then his eyes timely came across with the priest’s eloquent stare which made Eugene sharply change the direction of his finger to the opposite side where Stas was sitting. “…this suspicious individual, you’ll find so many stuff there!.. A whole Universe of diverse community of fleas, microbes and various disgusting parasites.”
“It’s you who are a disgusting parasite!” Stas countered with a smile. “It can be seen even with a naked eye…”
The entire company burst out laughing. Once the revelry abated, Nikolai Andreevich continued, “Well, this only proves the fact that stars and people are creatures resembling one another in many ways. Everything’s like in our life. Stars like people “live” in groups – in accumulations in which they are connected between each other by forces of mutual gravitation. And the most interesting thing is that, just like in human society, stars most often make up binary systems…”
“What systems?” Victor asked.
“Double systems,” Sensei explained. “It’s like two suns rotating around a common center of masses.”
“Yes,” Nikolai Andreevich confirmed. “That astronomer told such systems are very stable… And, in addition to double ones, there are also three-, four, fivefold stars. To tell the truth, these are rarer than double ones. And he surely paid particular attention to the threefold stars phenomenon, comparing it to his own situation. It turns out that triple stars cannot coexist stably. You know why? Two stars simply discard the third body, while they themselves may steadily rotate side by side during a long period of time.”
“It’s a natural law of mechanics,” Sensei uttered, shrugging his shoulders. “The third body disturbs movement of the other two and usually leads to such system decay.”
“Amazing laws which in many respects coincide with human society!” Nikolai Andreevich said.
“It depends on how you look at that society,” Svat chimed in with a chuckle. “Especially, at a trio. If a trio includes a woman, it’s a delicate issue, I agree. But, if it’s a male company, they can occasionally form systems so stable, especially in drinking, that their mutual gravitation is truly marvelous. And the main thing is that there mostly gather not four or five of them, but exactly three, not more and not less.”
“This way, it is easier to think. A certain integrity of mind is generated,” Bogdan remarked with a grin.
“It’s correct,” Oleg confirmed and specified. “Four is already an excess, one is excessive.”
“The most interesting thing is that it’s just the same up there,” Nikolai Andreevich pointed at the sky, laughing with all the rest. “Fourfold, fivefold stars make insecure groups which dissociate much faster. Surely, same laws of nature operate there. Such cohabitations of stars may form and decay many times throughout their existence. And, as my patient explained, a star may constantly change its partners. For example, in compact star accumulations a star may fly from one “company” to another as many as six times during its lifetime…”
Eugene archly glanced at Father John.
“Father, it’s a heavenly adultery. How does the church tolerate this?”
Father John made a “clever” face, looked at the stars and declared in priestly voice, “It’s all God’s will, child.”
It made everyone laugh again.
“It’s probably true,” Nikolai