6 March 1960So I am finally taken out as well, led inside an office hid in that tiny niche of the arched corridor; examined, identified, undressed. I am only left one towel, one bar of soap, one toothbrush, one toothpaste, two pairs of socks, one shirt, one pair of underwear, all of which I tie up in a bundle. I look at the clock above the niche arch and see that it is much earlier than I thought. A very tall and strong guard beckons me along. (At the "snakes" they were quite talkative; now they work without a word). But he does not take me towards the row of metal doors laden with locks and latches, behind which I suspect the cells. We arrive outside, in the yard. This night in early March is one of snowstorms. I have a shirt and underwear on. The guard shows me a huge heap of suitcases, sacks, rucksacks, parcels, saddlebags, and orders me to carry them all from the yard inside a storeroom next to the entrance in the corridor along which the doors are. Some trunks weigh very much. I potter about for two hours, shivering and chattering, as not only is it cold, but I am also in a terrible draught. The guard, muffled up in an immense Siberian fur coat, his boots inside felt shoes, has raised up his fur-lined collar, has pulled the flaps of his cap down over his ears and has coiled up – much like the invisible man in the film after H. G. Wells – on a chair spitefully thrown in a corner, where he probably watches me from. He must be cold as well and – why I don't know – but I have the impression he is not very pleased to see me rummaging about in the snow, undressed, scrawny and wretched.I finish the work, merry that I have not shown any signs of weakness, beginning to warm myself. The guard beckons me along again, shaking up a ring with a lot of enormous keys on. He stops before cell 18, opens the door with difficulty, yawns and throws me inside.In the end it may be that God does not even need to punish us. He turns his face from us; which means he withdraws his protective grace and leaves us at the hands of chance and the interrelations of the material world. We enter a zone of hazard and mechanics: alas the day! 7 March 1960He has thrown me inside. Now I stand petrified by the door. I look around. I am in a hole of gigantic proportions; an unbelievable stench hits me. The hole is highly lit up. A sort of night asylum amplified geometrically. I am overwhelmed by a two-fold contradictory feeling of desolation and agglomeration. On both sides four rows of iron beds that go nearly as high as the tall arched ceiling. The window in front of me is bolted with boards, with bars on the inside. In the space between the multitude of beds, a narrow table, two rickety benches, themselves narrow. In the right back corner, a tub, a trough, a covered barrel. That's it. Down, along the beds, lines – that seem endless – of boots.Several strong snores do not break the deep silence, just like isolated clouds that do not overcome the unity of a violently blue sky. The odd rattle. The metallic noise of latches and keys has not awaked anyone; and this surprises me. I start to tremble with cold, riveted in my scant clothes, bundle in my right hand, blind to the aggressive light. The breathing is different and dissonant. I stand like this for a long time and wait, but I cannot make out any moves. My eyes look for a place where I might rest, go to bed. I cannot see any. And nobody sees me.After I have long scrutinized the walls with exterior coffins, my eyes look down and I come across a mixture of clay, cement, gravel and mud. The room seems to me unbearably hostile and evil, I feel ridiculous and lost. I feel defeated by tiredness, frightened especially. Like before an exam where you do not know the subject matter. A wholly different horror than the Securitate.(Premonitions are not always valid. I did not know on the threshold of that stinking hole, intensely lit up and caught in a forked whirlpool of snoring and silence, that I would find an access to happiness there.)For now my eyes wander up and down, right, left, everywhere, persevering, scared.Light and void.(Everything can be soiled; here even light is cold and mean. How did you fall from the sky, bright star, and son of morning? Winston Smith in 1984 (in the place where there is no darkness?) and what sort of place proves that to be: investigation and prison rooms! Still, he was not lied to: there is always light, but what kind of light? Of the kind the fall of the angel Lucifer probably sent out, as God saw him breaking down, lightning, into the deep.)Suddenly, up above, at the gallery, to the left, on the highest row, a hand has raised a finger and motions me to climb up.Climb up – but how? The hand – that must surely be endowed with sight and understands I am turning about looking for a means to ascend – is joined by a second one, its sister, no doubt. They sketch out a climb. With my bundle, like a poor wretch, with cowardly movements, chattering, I find myself enough of a monkey to be able to hang all the way up, holding myself by the iron beds. A muffled-up apparition, short of stature and horribly thin, of a pallor that may well depend on a different chromatic prism than the one in our universe, moves closer to another mummy and, silently still, urges me to lie down beside it; it covers me with one half of a ragged blanket. And whispers to me: sleep for a bit; there's not much time left.Maybe the most terrible words uttered by Our Savior can be found in Luca 22:67: "If I tell you, ye will not believe."This is the human condition. We do not believe Him. We do not believe each other. We do not want to, we cannot, we do not know how, we do not dare, we do not strive to believe the others. Experience is not transmissible. We come to understand some things – so what? we are not believed. We can speak, but we cannot establish communication. What else can we do but, following His example, remain silent (not frowned). I do not think ten minutes pass by, when a more that deafening noise begins; of those stars broken into pieces that in Le Napus by Leon Daudet cause the instantaneous disappearance of men? Lasting uproar, demented clamor; an explosion I would never forget, that would later, through the years, still wake me up at five, even a few minutes earlier, out of anticipatory dread. This acoustic rush – of doorbells? church bells? bugles? fire arms? – penetrates into the most Freudian, most Jungian, most Adlerian strata of the self and sets up its den in unknown places of the being.Miracles exist. God works all the time. N.N.P.'s predictions come true straight away. Hardly did the squall of trumpets stop, than my well-meaning neighbor introduces himself: he is an orthodox monk-priest. Another couple of ghosts wake up beside him, one stout and heavy, the other lean and youthful: it is two Greek Catholic priests. I know, in the middle of the tumult that arises after the awakening is over, when a sea of bald heads fills up the space and the covered barrel entails, comet-like, a huge line, I know I am now in the hands of God the living. "I trust I make myself obscure"[i]. My monk is a Moldavian from beyond the Prut[ii]. He is a young man, sentenced for having had visions and having sent the Department of Cults a letter in which he protested against the suppression of the hermitage where he had been living. No sooner do I get to tell him – I am striking the iron while it's hot – that I am a Jew and that I wish to be baptized, than he expresses his agreement. He is meek, slow-moving and silent. The two Greek Catholics are different from one another. Father Nicolaie, from Alba, young, is lively and excited, funny and fond of idle talk; very much like a seminarist in a Russian novel. Father Iuliu is big, strong, wise and as lonely as can be. His eyes show the pain caused by the fact that his daughter, a nun, is convicted as well; she was part of a lot of mystic nuns. Since we are talking about strange pairings of situations and words, I tell him, I was part of a lot of mystic legionaries[iii], too. But father Iuliu also has other reasons for depression: a catholic priest, he signed, unconvinced, his transition to Orthodoxism in 1948; for this he cannot forgive himself. Now he is here on accusations of stubbornness in Catholicism and work in the service of the Vatican. The obsession of the first deed does not leave him, however, and I find myself in the paradoxical situation of me comforting him, saying that only in Judaism, Brahmanism and Buddhism do facts stay on record forever and cannot be erased, whereas in Christianity faith and repentance abolish them completely (therefore, Christianity has discovered gravity), and that even in Judaism, Brahmanism and Buddhism there is a law of compensation, and so, that his present suffering balances a past mistake. Father Iuliu listens to me, sighs and nods – but it is clear he is still having regrets.Father Mina, the orthodox priest, has only required a few catechizing lessons and we do them sitting next to one another on the edge of an iron bed, our backs to the door, whispering. We are both wearing our convict's uniform, of course: boots with no laces, a striped and ragged overcoat, a little cap (this time with horizontal stripes). The coat has no buttons, the trousers, too short, are on the brink of falling. In fact everything here at Jilava has the most violent appearance of dungeon, of sing-sing, not of severe jail. The building is dreary, but the inside of the cell looks like a fair, like a painting by Breughel, Chagall, like a madhouse. The crowd is inconceivable, you can barely move, the noise is formidable, although people only talk in a whisper (at least theoretically), the queue to the bog is uninterrupted. The most extraordinary questions are going around (how do you say chaffinch in French? which peace ended the Seven years war? how do you say brass in German? what are the names of the three Parcae, of the nine muses, of the three Graces, of the seven wise men of the ancient world? of the seven kings of Rome? Of the three gentlemen from Babylon? what about in Syrian? – what are the first names of the Buzeşti brothers?[iv] who wrote Tsar and Wheelwright? what is the capital of Suabia? what are the rivers in Eden? how about chervil, what do you call that in French? what about quince in French?) BOOGEY MAMBO RAG We eat in two shifts, ten minutes apart. The food is incandescent, usually pearl barley. There are only enough spoons for a fifth or a sixth of the convicts. The first shift is forced to finish quickly so that the mess tins can be washed and gathered in a heap at the hatch for shift number two. But how can you, without a spoon and in five minutes, eat hot dough that resembles the presumed magma or soup where unicellular life on earth originated? Most of the food is left in the mess tins; it is poured in the tub, which fills to the brim. Washing the dish where the gluey pearl barley was is a highly laborious piece of work. (What were the twelve labors of Hercules? Who wrote White Birch Cross? Where is Alexander the Great buried? Turnip cabbage in French is novet. God forbid, it's poireau. I'm sorry, but poireau is leek. You're kidding, sir, how can it be leek. He was a military attaché in London. That's how he knew English. At Răcăciuni, that's where it was signed. I think they say Messing. I think you're right. Oh, dill is easy, it's fenouil. Oh no, it's aneth.) As soon as the second or the third day, it is our turn, Al. Pal.'s and mine, to be on duty in the room. I do not know which well-meaning fellow urges us to use the ash in the little stove; the water – bad, stinking, worm-eaten water – is scant. We have to wash sixty or seventy mess tins in a few minutes. The ash combines with the pearl barley juice and forms hardy glue. The little water we had is gone. What shall we do? We are furious: two intellectuals awkwardly making a fool of themselves. We exchange looks devoid of any sense of humor. What shall we do? God takes pity on us and works a miracle.(There would be heaps of miracles during our prison years. No one who has ever been in jail doubts miracles, more than that, they are surprised miracles are not admitted by everyone as the most regular thing.) I did not know. I had lived like a blockhead, like an animal, like a blind man. In prison, towards dusk, I found out what kindness, decency, heroism, dignity was. Only talk! Idle talk! Idle talk for scamps and snitches; very useful and meaningful talk when you feel its coolness in the fiery mountain lake and you can taste its experimental charm. Let anyone believe what they will, I do not qualify to speak about absolute value, one thing I know: that this idle talk and the features it signified were more precious there than a shoelace, a thread, a nail (the nail even Geo Bogza[v] learned to respect in public prisons), a piece of paper or any other forbidden item that would make its possessor happy.
H. G. Wells in The Research Magnificent: two great forces: fear and aristocracy. Now I understand him. Fear must be defeated. There is only one thing in the world, only one: courage. And the secret is behaving like aristocrats. Only kindness, politeness, calm, good conduct are funny. I begin to realize that only character matters. Political beliefs, philosophic opinions, social origin, religious belief are mere accidents: only character remains after the filtering caused by years of prison – or of life – , by wear and tiredness: skeleton, code, electric model. The miracle lies in the extra tub of water that the guards on the corridor most unusually bring. When the door is open, we are put face to the wall and hands on our necks; when it is closed, we turn around and find the tub. More than that, the food for shift number two is singularly late, so when asked at the hatch, Al. Pal. and myself can produce mess tins that could be seen as clean.Manole was repeating the prayer of La Hire, one of the captains that fought with Joan of Arc: treat me, oh God, like I would treat You, if I were in Your place and You in mine. 10-15 March 1960The catechizing lessons progress very quickly; father Mina is lenient and undemanding and it is also true that I prove to know quite a lot. The three priests hold council, and then come to ask me: what do I want to be, a catholic or an orthodox? I answer orthodox without hesitation. Very well. The monk will baptize me. But the two Greek Catholics will be present at the baptism as a homage to their faith and as proof we all mean to bring ecumenism to life in a period when John XXIII is on the papal throne, I will say the Creed in front of the Catholic priests. All three ask that I consider myself baptized in the name of ecumenism and that I promise to always fight – if I am fated to get out of prison – for its cause. Which I do wholeheartedly. No one knows when we will be out of cell 18 (it is transitory) and scattered wherever. Therefore we had better not postpone this. The baptism will take place on 15. Consequently, less than ten days will have passed between my arrival in the cell and the baptism. N.N.P. was right.Infernal noise, confusion, a growing crowd (new convicts are always coming in), most of the time there is not a single drop of water, ever longer queues at the bog (there are more of us every day and most everyone has a stomachache), jumble, cold, guards roaring, lieutenant Stefan's unexpected visits: he swears like blazes, stares at us fiercely and threatens us he is going to "jump on our heads"; they do checks and those found with laces on their boots are sent to "the black". There are no mess tins, no spoons, no beds… The Noica-Pillat lot, those that are here, disregard the muddle and organize a few cultural circles: Sanskrit lessons taught by Dr. Al.-G., the history of arts (Remus Niculescu), Spanish (Theodor Enescu), general biology (Dr. C. Răileanu), cultural history (Al. Pal.), agricultural techniques (Iacov Noica), the philosophy of law (Dinu Ranetti); I "open" an English course myself. Prompted on by doctor Al.-G. (who proves to be an entirely exceptional personality: firm, brave, high-spirited, profound in everything he says, obliging, upright), a few collective sittings on general themes take place, which all "students" must be a part of. The first theme is the theory of the act. This is why it is so difficult to do the good because you are faced at every step with the obstinate opposition and the skilled impediments of the evil one. Nietzsche: "We are especially punished for our virtues."As soon as he makes the decision to do the good, man takes on a huge responsibility and willingly puts the noose around his neck. On the other hand, the good being of divine essence, those who desire the good prove to be – it is a point on which we have to admit the devil is right – very daring and even haughty. Anyway, before rushing into the field of the good, you have to know that you are walking on a minefield. Proverbs ascertain the situation cynically: "Give a slave a rod and he'll beat his master", "Give a clown a finger and he will take your hand", "Let an ill man lie in thy straw and he will look to be thy heir", and the Apostle does not in fact think otherwise when he writes (Rom. 7:15, 18, 19) that he does not do the good he wants to, but the evil he does not.Anyone can do evil, however helpless he is. The good, however, is only for the tough souls and hardened natures. The evil: milk for children; the good: meat for grown-ups. By creating the poor employee Salavin, who was suddenly bent on holiness and ended up defeated, G. Duhamel understood how things were standing. Holiness and kindness are not at hand for everyone. Kicking a football around is one thing, doing fencing is quite another. It needs stern training. For this cause, monks mortify (and strengthen) themselves in various ways, before daring to make for the path of good deeds. It is a pity the yogis drive at a removal from the world, beyond good and evil and not at doing the good and living the love, because well-trained they are for sure. Bunuel's film Viridiana, reckoned by many antichristian and shameful, represents as well a perfect intuition of the danger of looking for holiness on one's own and in an idiorhythmic way. Viridiana is a justification of the church and the monastery and a demonstration of our little ability to assimilate and apply Christ's teachings.The heresy of humility, of fake humility, somehow the opposite of another: angelism.The temptation to let yourself be sentenced to eternal labor and to go to Hell out of so much love for Christ that you would yearn to make the sacrifice that lies in giving Him up, this logical and demented temptation that Papini described in one of his short stories.The temptation hovered around Jansenists as well, who are told to have been recommending the monks at Port-Royal not to take communion for a long time in order to suffer subtly and harshly by staying away from Christ. On Iorga's death, Ct. N. wanted to send Horia Sima the following telegram from Germany: "I asked to be entered in the legion the day Codreanu was murdered, I ask to leave the legion the day Codreanu was killed."But, out of humility, he did not do it. But the temptation of fake humility – to refrain from good deeds and legitimate joys – in the end equals Judas's sin. Judas resigned himself as well, he was humble while plunging into evil. To give up out of humility, to resign ourselves to the rascals we are.We can find an explanation for this mode of reasoning that begins with modesty and humility and arrives at demonism only in Chesterton's work, that defined madness as the supreme form of logic.There is, of course, the reasoning of the Papinian hero: I love Christ – Christ asks us to sacrifice ourselves for him – what greater sacrifice is there than giving Him up for good? – to commit, therefore, the vile and base deeds that would surely open up the gates of Hell for us is entirely logical. But it is only logical and, so, demented.Orthodox monks reckon neither kindness, intelligence, love faith, nor patience, piety or holiness as the main feature of man, but good reason, which is a very complex virtue and difficult to put into words. (Its formula is as vast as the basic polymers'). Good reason contains, minutely, stealthily grained, both common sense, wisdom, obedience, will, and all of the above. No virtue is absolute – not even truth – , only the skilful consideration of several can help us keep away not merely from evil (this is quite easy), but also from learned blunders and sophisticated errors.Unfortunately, one cannot use reason to prove a madman's iron-strong logic wrong, but rather admit the truth Chesterton ascertained, namely that pure logic, unsupported and uncompleted by the other beneficent features, is a dangerous disease, fatal even.The heresy of fake humility also disregards the advice of conquering the heavens. We are not asked to be resigned, but ambitious, overtaking. i.e., we are asked for concrete love, which is the same as desiring the presence of the bridegroom, the will to be on His side. Mary's side, the good side. We do not even drive at being somewhere in particular – Heaven, Tabor, the Golgotha, Canaan – but only to be beside Christ, who Himself is the truth, the way and the life.The heresy of fake humility is also opposed to the fundamental text in Rev. 3:20, where our Savior promises the one who respects His commandments that He will come in to him and sup with him. Christ wants to be together with us, He asks us to crucify our body in order to be able to be one with Him, and not to estrange us irretrievably from Him in the pits of Hell, on the generous aseptic corridors of syllogistic madness.Only good reason can help us in this desert (or labyrinth?), because it is simple. The unwill – especially Russian and known as the Iuradiviies' – is a very special form of holiness. It belongs to those who pretend to be stupid, idiotic, crazy, confused in order to incite disdain and cause offences. The case of nun Isidora, Isidora the crazy, used by her fellow nuns only for the hard work and seen as a madcap till the day a great hermit reveals her, to the others' shame. Subtle mortification; true, it is terrible and so highly commendable, but it is just as dangerous and equivocal:first, it implies putting the others in a state of sin (you cause their unjustness, the success of your plan presupposes their lack of pity, it anticipates their meanness);then, it is a stumbling reason for many innocents who will mistake faith for madness;finally, it puts noble reason under the spell of lunacy, disgracing it.Everything happens in very labile regions, on quicksand; it is a dance on a volcano, on knife edge, where falling is always an option.Not to mention another danger: that the hypocritical, the idiotic or the foolish one should in time get to turn his role into reality, and to actually become what he pretends to be. This consideration is maybe the most serious one and it brings out the observation that Christian life cannot be founded on pretence, masks, delusion, tomfoolery. In other words, on hypocrisy. The Church has always walked the path of balance and common sense, sometimes a bit ordinary. Sophisticated paths belonged to heresies. Refined as they were, they seemed superior as well, and especially won over sharp minds, who could not believe that good reason was in its simplicity the supreme refinement.Since Christ is the one that rose from the dead – and if he did not, what good is it to be Christian – , we cannot aspire to Hell, death's abode.Al. Pal. and Anetta told me that I was devoid of any humility and compassion towards a poor old man, that if I refused to be a prosecution witness, to make statements, to be reeducated, etc. – like so many others, like so many honest and virtuous people – , it was only out of pride. And maybe I would have agreed, had I not been in the know regarding the heresy of fake humility.And is not this humility – which equals the intention of settling human worthlessness, of forbidding man to reach out and surpass himself – is it not itself a paradoxical arrogance, colored by ridicule, like the disconcerting sentence of a French bishop: in matters of Christian humility, I defy any sort of competition? BOOGEY MAMBO RAG Sectarian B: So you lied in the investigation.General A.V.: I did.Sectarian B: And you call yourself a Christian? Don't you know lying is forbidden by God? General A.V.: I know that. But I can't apply the principle with no discrimination. I have to tell the truth, but not all of it and not to anyone.Sectarian B.: Yes. The whole truth and nothing but the truth to anyone. We are forbidden to lie.General A.V.: Even if I maim another?Sectarian B.: Even then.General A.V.: Not even to free a man from unjust persecution?Sectarian B.: No.General A.V.: Then I prefer to take the sin on myself and expiate for it.Sectarian B.: This is from the devil.General A.V.: Let me tell you a story. My friend, engineer Al. Ştef., had a servant who was a millenary or "faithful" or I don't know what, but anyway she wouldn't have told a lie for the world. A very honest woman. When Mrs. Ştef. was at home and someone was ringing at the door and she wouldn't have them (her headaches were tormenting her), she asked the servant to say she wasn't there (I forgot to tell you their house was in the middle of a large garden.) The believer would absolutely refuse. Unpleasant situations and talks would arise. The woman, that she wouldn't lie. Mrs. Ştef. didn't want to release her, as she was honest and hard working. In the end they struck a deal: the servant would go to the door after her mistress had left the house and gone in the back garden. Then the servant would agree to say: "Madam is not in." Not catching the drift, the uninvited guest would understand at home – and the fuss was over. So, tell me, how do you like that? Gherla[vi], March 1962A cold afternoon, that nevertheless reveals a faint promise of spring. Through the interstices of the boards we guess there is a spell of thaw outside. Nostalgia and apathy overcome me. I would like to be able to shrink on the oven like a child or a cat. I am visited by the clear and close images of the boundless yard at the factory in Pantelimon[vii], the Armenească[viii] street and its unbelievable quietness, the Christmas tree in the Seteanu house, Mrs. Boerescu smiling in her violet velvet dress, the forest between the Târgului river and the Doamnei[ix] river at Clucereasa, Mrs. Florescu's hurried gestures, Mrs. de Bransky's anti-Catholic imprecations, the many different cries of street merchants that pierced the domes of peace and quiet that rose above the lanes and the streets… And Anetta who looks straight into my eyes and Manole vituperating at the Duque against the liberals and for the Junimists[x]… I ask doctor Serafim Pâslaru to recite one of his poems for me, and then, even more taken with nostalgia, I crouch down – as much as we are allowed – under the board-covered window of the cell – a vague strip of hill is visible through the interstices – and, like a child muttering well-known stories to himself, I go over and systematize the theory of the nine circles that I have been turning around in my head that that has soothed me for quite a while now. God the Creator, the Maker and the Keeper, Blaga[xi]'s Great Anonym, Voltaire's Great Clockmaker, the freemasons' Great Architect reigns and works in the first three circles. The righteous Judge that frightens, the Legislator of the Old Testament, the God of harsh justice dwells between the fourth and the seventh circles. Beginning with the seventh circle, unexpected final secrets are revealed – to those that are so fated. Only that, contrary to what Guenonist, theosophical, anthroposophic, spiritualist initiates or positive people with generous ideas or atheists of agnostic coloring may think, the divinity in the ninth circle is not a "force" or an "energy", as impassive and impersonal as possible, a hidden coordinator or constructor, but it is God with a white beard, gentle and kind, the God of remotest childhood and carols, of cakes and carol rolls, of the most beautiful Christmas evenings, of Dickens and Bibliotheque Rose.This is where Christ the Soother and Reliever lives, who promised to cure us of evil, meanness, sins and suffering, whom Chekhov's heroes in Uncle Vania have in mind. (We shall rest, uncle Vania…) God the highest, final, the secret of all secrets and the saint of all saints is not at all abstract, he is no cold Creator, no unending and unchanging Brahma, he is not the thinking deity of the gnosis, counting the eons. And of course earthly seriousness does not reign over this ninth heaven, uninhabited by Brahma; no trace of that so-called seriousness of pedants, hard workers, hypocrites and bookkeepers. We are asked to be serious in the world in the sense of virtuous, honest, sensitive to other people's suffering, but not gloomy and mere merciless practitioners of the regulations imposed by transient kingdoms and ephemeral police stations. Monks are cheerful – they refrain from showing it in public, but their behavior inside the "ark" is different – sour are only devils and clerks – , and I bet heaven is full of merry-making. How could it be different, since the Savior tells us clearly that you will not get inside unless you are like babies. Are babies "serious" or wildly cheerful? Everyone is ready to admit the Creator, even the more conciliatory atheists, the agnostics in corpore. The freemasons as well admit an Architect, a Supreme Being. Just like Robespierre. Neither of the more or less faithful followers of theosophy and Hinduism (and there are many in the world) rejects the idea of a guiding spirit. Nowadays, even people familiar with the popular scientific language and fond of objective modes of expression mention an Energy, a Force, an Engine without any grudge. It was an Engine in Aristotle, too. But to us, here, in prison – quintessence of life – how ignorant they all seem, from the Stagirite to Rene Guenon and Edouard Schure! Maybe it is, I will not deny it, maybe it is like they say around heavens one or two. There, yes, there is math, there is the gnosis, two and two is four, there is architectonics, planetary orbits, laws, justice, I don't know, stuff…From the third one upwards, things change, however. All traces of bookkeeping disappear. We are mounting towards Christ. The galaxies and eons are left quietly behind. The most difficult part of the ascent begins. Customs show up more frequently. In order to pass from the Creator to the idea of Trinity, to the reality of a divinity not only almighty and ordering, but especially kind and worried about the fate of its creation; loving people in a self-sacrificial way, delivering and comforting. Christianity is not only a religion that bows before a Maker, but believes madly in a Savior that gave Himself, out of love, to the world.[xii] Lesski says clearly that the Christian is not a monotheist, but a believer in a Trinitarian religion. He, the Christian, belongs to a different field from moralist, fair or systematized monotheism.As we mount the stairway to heaven, the views are ever more unexpected. Among constellations and flocks of galaxies, novae, dim and white stars, forgetting about angry sermons, volumes of theology and apologetic arguments, overtaking eternal springs of hydrogen – regulated by professor Hoyle's spirit – , leaving behind judges, constructors, reckoners, prophets, stern philosophers and non-Euclidian geometricians, the Soul rises ever higher, purging itself, up to the terminus station: the place of light and verdure, the flowery meadow, swarmed with small and plump puppies and white kittens with bow, there where the chords of Mozart's diversions resound and the winged angels of Liliom take the trouble to continually serve jams and sherbet, there where the true God is, the God of children – finally – allowed to come, no matter how old in years or laden with wearisome memories, and see: the Father with a white beard in the middle, Christ bearing the stigmata and cross on the right, the Holy Spirit, purging and soothing, on the left.
