The Antichrist (8 page)

‘We have placed God at a distance,' I was told by a number of people. ‘Let others copy us if they please! We have, as you can see
for yourself, not only abolished wealth, gold, the emperor and the executioner but swept Heaven clean of all the filth that had collected there during the course of history. Now the earth is clean and the sky is empty.'

And so the deed was done. They had taken up two brooms in their hands, one for sweeping the earth and one for sweeping the heavens. And they had even given the brooms names. The one was called Revolution, and the other was called Human Reason.

Yet there were many in this land who did not approve of one or the other or even both of these brooms.

Some of these people could truly believe that the earth was now clean because they could see the earth.

But as they could not see Heaven they mistrusted the broom that was called Human Reason.

‘If you mistrust your own reason,' the sweepers informed them, ‘it's because you don't have enough of it.'

‘But maybe,' replied the others, ‘you trust reason so much because you yourselves possess so little of it. And perhaps you have more than us, but it's possible there exists something other than human reason, namely a divine reason. And your own superior reason is no better than our poor reason at recognizing this divine reason. You think you know, but we believe.'

‘And even if you are right,' replied the sweepers, ‘and even if there is really a divine reason that is superior to ours, we still cannot let it prevail any longer. For you must remember that our last oppressors appealed to this unknowable divine reason and that they oppressed us in its name.'

‘We don't deny that,' answered the wiser among the faithful. ‘It was the sin of the oppressors that they brazenly proclaimed that they alone (and not us) could know the intentions of the divine will. And if they could really do so then it was a double sin to
oppress us by appealing to this knowledge. For, as minimal as our knowledge is, yet all the faithful know this one thing, that God doesn't want oppression. And we were also foolish when we believed that the powerful knew more about divine purposes than did we. That was our fault. We admit it.

‘But at the very least you are guilty of denying something about which you are uncertain – is it there, or isn't it there? Do you know, for example, from whence man comes and to whence he goes? Do you know what happened before your birth and what will happen after your death? Have you already spoken with someone who is dead or with someone not yet born?'

The sweepers said: ‘Even if we could talk with those who aren't yet born or those who have died, we wouldn't do so. We have too much concern about the misery of the living. We don't have as much time as you do. We follow the maxim:
Religion is the opium of the people.'

‘Now,' said the wiser among the faithful, ‘although you have no time we can wait. For we have time. We have until the end of time.'

And the faithful went to pray.

But they were not left in peace. It was remarkable that exactly those people who had said they had no time to speak with the dead, even if they could do so, still found time to disturb the faithful. They wrote above the image of the Madonna, which was set up before one of the gates of the broom-master's palace, the phrase of their prophet:
Religion is the opium of the people.

What a saying. Foolish like all sayings that have the strength to wheedle their way into the ears of men, as a popular song might. They are as far removed from wisdom as popular tunes are from real music. One could even turn this saying around, just as the verses of a hit song can be sung backwards without changing the musical sense. In this saying the words do not possess their original
meaning but rather an applied one. It is the same with the sound of a popular song. One could turn the sense of the song into its opposite and it would sound just as flattering to the frivolous ear. One could, for example, say
Unbelief is the opium of the people;
or, if one wished,
Opium is the religion of the rich;
or perhaps
The rich are the opium of religion;
or maybe
Those in power are the opium of the people;
or, if one preferred,
The powerful
– and actually the powerful at any particular time and not religion –
are the opium of the people.
The words of a philosopher? Not a chance! It is the slogan of a parliamentarian!

This slogan was written above an image of the Madonna. But, regardless, many people prayed before this image each day. And it was as though they were asking the Mother of God for forgiveness for the slogan that had been placed over her image. And as there were no more rich people left in this country, those who came to kneel and pray before the Mother of God were poor. Poor by birth or had become so – whatever the reason, they were poor. And therefore – the people. The Mother of God was dignified in her apparent helplessness against the power of the catchphrase because she was visibly weak, and all that was left to her was the seemingly insignificant ability to attract those who were poor and mocked, in other words – the people! She promised nothing, she performed no miracles, she gave no speeches, she was mocked, and yet there were people who clung to her and allowed themselves to be persecuted for her sake.

They were all poor. And since, for one must be fair, in this country, everything possible was done for the people under the given circumstances, I asked myself why these poor people still prayed. Just what made them drift towards an unknown force, although they could see that the known powers were eager to help them? They must have been so distressed that they could not speak of it to
the known and visible powers. One mother's son was dying, and the doctors in the hospital were powerless against death. The doctors gave him real opium so that he would not suffer, and this was all they could do. A woman wanted to have a child, but enigmatic Nature gave her nothing. Another woman had not wanted to have the child she was carrying, and it pained her that she did not wish to bring it into the world. And there was a man who was weeping over his dead brother, whom the improved conditions of this world could not bring back. Still others were praying simply because their hearts were full. Without any reason. For even though the sweepers had cleared the earth of all kinds of garbage, people's hearts could not be emptied of the inexplicable sorrow that often filled them. If the sweepers had been able, as was certainly their intention, to quench hunger and thirst, to provide shelter for all who had to sleep under the sky, to supply beds and medicine to the sick, crutches to the lame and guide dogs to the blind, there would still remain hearts that needed more, needed something that could never be provided by earthly powers. There are many who prefer unjust love to loveless justice. And they are not happy unless they are both loved and hurt.

For between that which constitutes man's predictable happiness and that which constitutes his unpredictable happiness there is a wide gap that we cannot fill with our logical reasoning. We are made of flesh and spirit. A cat is contented simply with milk and butter, but a man is not satisfied for long after having eaten and drunk. And even if he is given books, taken to the theatre and his curiosity about earthly knowledge satisfied, there will always be a moment in which he asks, like the child he has never ceased to be: ‘Why? Why?'

There can be no answer to all of his questions. Not even when he asks: ‘Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?'

The people had previously been kept in blinkers. In this country, however, everyone thought that these questions would stop if only satisfactory replies were given to those questions that could be answered for the time being.

Those questions for which an answer could be found began to be placed before the citizens of the country, even when they had no wish to pose such questions themselves.

So the people were taught to pose questions but only those questions for which there was an answer at the ready.

Those questions that could not be answered, even when they were put into words, were left without an answer.

Because the people of this country were believers by nature, and because they had been forcibly kept in ignorance and blindness for many long years before the Revolution, the equally forceful attempt to grant them knowledge and education succeeded in surpassing through so-called natural wonders the supernatural wonders in which they were accustomed to believing.

The people there were kindly people. One could persuade them that the saints in Heaven concerned themselves about a sick cow and a lame calf.

When veterinarians came to treat the sick cattle, it was proved that an ordinary animal doctor could do more than a saint.

In the villages in the southern portion of this great country the people believe, for example, that the prophet Elijah makes thunder, lightning and rain. And when the fields needed a storm, the people prayed to St Elijah.

On the day of this holy one's feast the authorities who had swept Heaven empty decided to prove to the peasants in the villages that storms are not caused by saints. They sent experts to the villages on that very day, equipped with a number of scientific
apparatus. These experts showed the people the scientific laws of thunder, lightning and storms.

When the poor people now saw that men could produce storms using machines they stopped (although not all at once) believing in the power of St Elijah.

However, they did begin to believe in the power of the apparatus and the supernatural power of the men who used it. Since it was a dry summer, and the fields could have used a storm, they asked these educated men to create a proper storm.

‘This apparatus is too small for all the vast fields,' said the learned men. The people would have to wait until someone built a bigger machine.

This answer, or excuse, was so crafty that I was seized by the desire to speak with such clever men.

I told them that they must have realized that they had lied.

‘Naturally we lied!' they replied. ‘Because we had to drive Elijah out of the peasants even at the price of a lie. From St Elijah to the Tsar is only one step.' I asked them what then did they believe – that the Tsar had supported the saint or vice versa? And why wasn't it possible to understand an apparatus and also venerate the holy? And were the saints the foes of science? And weren't they aware that it is human nature to replace each saint that has been taken away with a new one? And does the so-called blind faith in a saint have less value than blind faith in a man?

‘They don't want a blind faith,' said the learned ones in reply

‘But there is something worse,' I said to them, ‘and that is blind knowledge. We have only two eyes to see with. Alas, there is so much to see in the world that we would require a thousand eyes. With our two poor eyes we cannot perceive all these things. And therefore we cannot say that we know all and can teach all. It is just as false to think that our eyes can see everything as it is to close them
intentionally so that they can't see anymore. None of us has seen St Elijah. But we don't know whether we haven't seen him because he isn't there or because we are simply unable to see him.'

The gentlemen laughed and said that they had worries other than mine. They would speak with me again later after they had eliminated these other worries from the world.

Because, however, my worries were at their root the same as those of the peasants, I know that these gentlemen were not thinking logically. It is, in any case, easier to persuade the credulous through a scientific apparatus than to argue with believers.

The founder of their world was named Lenin, and after his death they put him into a glass coffin. His body was embalmed and paraffin was injected into his cheeks so that for decades after he will still look as though he is sleeping peacefully, not like a dead man. They set the transparent coffin in the middle of the square behind whose walls is the place where the inheritance of the deceased is administered. Thus any of the citizens and any visitor to the country can look at this dead man who seems only to be asleep.

Many childlike people believe that he really is asleep, and is only resting temporarily.

If one enquires why and on what basis was the dead man embalmed and displayed in a kind of solemn shop window, one soon comes to the conclusion that there were many reasons and a variety of purposes. The sweepers wanted to snatch from eternity at least a part of what belongs to it. And since it is impossible to conquer Death, they wanted at least to conquer the corpse, whose law is decay and not permanence. Thus it is like an ostentatious – but, naturally, at the same time childish – threat to Death, who is
shown that his victim can none the less be preserved, like a piece of jewellery that is no longer worn.

To provide visual proof of this was one of the most important goals.

‘You have taken him from us,' said the sweepers to Death. ‘We will show you, however, that we can keep him. And we will display him to all the world just as he looked during his lifetime.'

If they had been capable of hearing Death's answer, it would have been something like the following: ‘Your threat is childish and your pride is foolish. It is my purpose to take from this earth not his face but his life and what you loved – his breath. He is extinguished, like a lamp. I have taken wick and oil. You may keep the vessel. I am not concerned with it. It was his flame that you loved and his light! Why are you now flaunting the miserable vessel that held them? I have already extinguished many great lights, and monuments were built to them. And that is wiser than what you do! For a monument does not deny but rather confirms the law according to which I act. And since it confirms me it conquers me as well. Because a monument, however insignificant, is the sign that the living remember the dead, and it is a terrestrial, inadequate but reverent form of resurrection. However, you don't cause the dead man to be resurrected; you only make his corpse last. You prevent it from decaying. Why shouldn't a corpse turn into dust and ashes? Did men come from paraffin and wax to become paraffin and wax once again? If you have as much respect for the dead man as you say, don't you understand that he should not be exhibited the way a barber displays wax busts with wigs? Why do you so proudly show off for me – for Death? You have snatched nothing from me. Instead, you have detracted from your own dignity – your own dignity as well as the dignity of your dead.'