Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘one in all, and all from one.’

‘Then who are these chosen ones?’

‘The chosen ones are those who understand that any worm or butterfly, or even a blade of grass at the edge of the road, are chosen ones just like them, only they don’t know about it for the time being, and you have to take great care in order not to offend any one of them accidentally.’

‘I still don’t understand what mind is,’ he said.

‘Nobody understands that. Although, on the other hand, everybody knows it. Because it is precisely mind that is listening to what I say right now.’

‘Aha,’ he said. ‘I get it now . . . Maybe not everything, from beginning to end, but the way I understand it, there isn’t any end to all this anyway . . .’

‘That’s it!’ I said. If only that was always the way.

‘Okay, let’s say we’ve figured out the super-werewolf. But what’s the Rainbow Stream?’

‘Simply the world around us,’ I said. ‘You see the colours - blue, red, green? They appear and disappear in your mind. That is the Rainbow Stream. Every one of us is a super-werewolf in the Rainbow Stream.’

‘You mean, we’ve already entered the Rainbow Stream?’

‘Yes and no. On the one hand, the super-werewolf is in the Rainbow Stream from the very beginning. But on the other, it is not possible to enter it at all, because the Rainbow Stream is simply an illusion. But this is only an apparent contradiction, because you and this world are one and the same.’

‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Interesting. Okay, carry on.’

‘The real super-werewolf is a heavenly being. A heavenly being never loses her connection with the heavens.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘In this world there is nothing but dust. But when a heavenly being sees the dust, she remembers the light that makes the dust visible. While a tailless monkey only sees the dust on which the light falls. That’s why, when a heavenly being dies, she becomes light. But when a tailless monkey dies, he becomes dust.’

‘Light, dust,’ he said, ‘so there is something there after all! There is some kind of individual personality. You’ve definitely got one, Ginger. I’ve felt that pretty strongly just recently. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?’

‘This personality, with all its quirks and stupidities simply dances like a doll in the clear light of my mind. And the more stupid this doll’s quirks, the clearer the light that I recognize over and over again.’

‘Now you’re saying “my mind”. But you only just said it’s not yours.’

‘That’s the way language works. It’s the root from which infinite human stupidity grows. And we were-creatures suffer from it too, because we’re always talking. It’s not possible to open your mouth without being wrong. So you shouldn’t haggle over words.’

‘All right. But the personality that dances like a doll - that’s you, isn’t it?’

‘No. I don’t think of this personality as me, because I’m very far from being a doll. I am the light that makes it visible. But the light and the doll are only metaphors, and you shouldn’t clutch at them.’

‘Yes, Ginger,’ he said. ‘You’ve certainly been studying these questions for a long time . . . So tell me, how old are you really?’

‘Old enough,’ I said and blushed. ‘And about the dog and the lion - don’t be offended, please. It’s a classical allegory, and a very ancient one, honestly. The dog watches the stick, but the lion watches the person who threw it. By the way, when you understand that, it makes it much easier to read our press . . .’

‘I understand about the dogs and the lions, you needn’t have told me again,’ he replied sarcastically. ‘And I know about the press without you. Better tell me which way foxes look.’

I smiled guiltily.

‘We foxes keep one eye on the stick and the other on the person who throws it. Because we’re not very strong creatures, and we don’t just want to improve our souls, we want to live for a while too. That’s the reason we’re slightly cross-eyed ...’

‘I’ll have to toss a couple of sticks your way and see which way you look.’

‘You’re in good form today, comrade lieutenant general.’

Alexander scratched his chin.

‘Right, where’s the main conclusion?’ he asked.

‘What conclusion?’

‘You know, how to control all this? So that we can benefit from it.’

‘It’s rather hard to control,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘You’ll run yourself ragged trying to find the controller.’

‘Yes, it looks that way all right,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I like it.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘The Rainbow Stream, the super-werewolf - that’s all fine. Let’s say we’ve dealt with control too. But I still don’t understand the most important thing. Who creates the world? God?’

‘We do,’ I said. ‘More than that, we create God too.’

‘That’s taking things a bit far, Ginger,’ he chuckled. ‘You’ll do anything to get by without God. What do we create the world with? Our tails?’

I froze on the spot.

It’s hard to describe that second. All the surmises and insights of recent months, all my chaotic thoughts, all my presentiments - they all suddenly came together into a blindingly clear picture of the truth. I still didn’t understand all the consequences of this epiphany, but I already knew that now the mystery was mine. I was so excited, my head started spinning. I must have turned pale.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

‘No,’ I said, and forced myself to smile. ‘I just need to be alone for a while. Right now. Please don’t distract me. It’s very, very important.’

The world works in a mysterious and incomprehensible fashion. Wishing to protect frogs from children’s cruelty, adults tell children not to crush them because that will make it rain - and the result is that it rains all summer because the children crush frogs one after another. And sometimes it happens that you try with all your might to explain the truth to someone else, and suddenly you understand it yourself.

But then, for foxes the latter case is probably the rule rather than the exception. As I’ve already said, in order to understand something we foxes have to explain it to someone. This results from the specific qualities of our intellect, which is specifically designed to imitate human personalities, and is capable of mimicking the features of any culture. To put it more simply, it is our essential nature to constantly pretend. When we explain something to others, we are pretending that we have already understood it all. And since we are very clever creatures, we usually really do have to understand it, whether we wish to or not. They say that’s what makes the silver hairs appear in our tails.

When I pretend, I am always acting in a perfectly natural manner. And so I always pretend - that way everything turns out far more plausibly than if I suddenly start behaving sincerely. After all, what does behaving sincerely mean? It means expressing your essential nature directly in your behaviour. And if it is my essential nature to simulate, then for me the only path to genuine sincerity lies through simulation. I don’t mean to say by this that I never behave spontaneously. On the contrary, I simulate spontaneity with all the sincerity that I have in my heart. But words are proving tricky again - I am talking about something very simple, but it makes me seem like a dishonest creature with a double bottom. But it’s not like that. I actually don’t have any bottom at all.

Since a fox can pretend to be anything at all, she attains to the highest truth at the very moment when she pretends she has attained to it. And the best way to do this is in discussion with a less-developed being. But when I was talking to Alexander, I was not thinking about myself at all. I really was trying as hard as I could to help him. But as it turned out, he helped me. What an astonishing, incomprehensible paradox . . . But this paradox is the principal law of life.