“In order to grasp the essence of this teaching it is necessary clearly to understand the idea that the ways are the only possible methods for the development of man’s hidden possibilities. This in turn shows how difficult and rare such development is. The development of these possibilities is not a law. The law for man is existence in the circle of mechanical influences, the state of ‘man-machine.’ The way of the development of hidden possibilities is a way against nature, against God. This explains the difficulties and the exclusiveness of the ways. The ways are narrow and strait. But at the same time only by them can anything be attained. In the general mass of everyday life, especially modern life, the ways are a small, quite imperceptible phenomenon which, from the point of view of life, need not exist at all. But this small phenomenon contains in itself all that man has for the development of his hidden possibilities. The ways are opposed to everyday life, based upon other principles and subject to other laws. In this consists their power and their significance. In everyday life, even in a life filled with scientific, philosophical, religious, or social interests, there is nothing, and there can be nothing, which could give the possibilities which are contained in the ways. The ways lead, or should lead, man to immortality. Everyday life, even at its best, leads man to death and can lead to nothing eke. The idea of the ways cannot be understood if the possibility of man’s EVOLUTION without their help is admitted. Fragments: Two

“For a man of Western culture,” I said, “it is of course difficult to believe and to accept the idea that an ignorant fakir, a naive monk, or a yogi who has retired from life may be on the way to EVOLUTION while an educated European, armed with ‘exact knowledge’ and all the latest methods of investigation, has no chance whatever and is moving in a circle from which there is no escape.” Fragments: Two

Somebody asked at a meeting: “How should EVOLUTION be understood?” Fragments: Three

“The EVOLUTION of man,” G. replied, “can be taken as the development in him of those powers and possibilities which never develop by themselves, that is, mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real EVOLUTION of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of EVOLUTION whatever. Fragments: Three

“In order to understand the law of man’s EVOLUTION it is necessary to grasp that, beyond a certain point, this EVOLUTION is not at all necessary, that is to say, it is not necessary for nature at a given moment in its own development. To speak more precisely: the EVOLUTION of mankind corresponds to the EVOLUTION of the planets, but the EVOLUTION of the planets proceeds, for us, in infinitely prolonged cycles of time. Throughout the stretch of time that human thought can embrace, no essential changes can take place in the life of the planets, and, consequently, no essential changes can take place in the life of mankind. Fragments: Three

“Humanity neither progresses nor evolves. What seems to us to be progress or EVOLUTION is a partial modification which can be immediately counterbalanced by a corresponding modification in an opposite direction. Fragments: Three

“Only thought as theoretical and as far removed from fact as modem European thought could have conceived the EVOLUTION of man to be possible apart from surrounding nature, or have regarded the EVOLUTION of man as a gradual conquest of nature. This is quite impossible. In living, in dying, in evolving, in degenerating, man equally serves the purposes of nature — or, rather, nature makes equal use, though perhaps for different purposes, of the products of both EVOLUTION and degeneration. And, at the same time, humanity as a whole can never escape from nature, for, even in struggling against nature man acts in conformity with her purposes. The EVOLUTION of large masses of humanity is opposed to nature’s purposes. The EVOLUTION of a certain small percentage may be in accord with nature’s purposes. Man contains within him the possibility of EVOLUTION. But the EVOLUTION of humanity as a whole, that is, the development of these possibilities in all men, or in most of them, or even in a large number of them, is not necessary for the purposes of the earth or of the planetary world in general, and it might, in fact, be injurious or fatal. There exist, therefore, special forces (of a planetary character) which oppose the EVOLUTION of large masses of humanity and keep it at the level it ought, to be. Fragments: Three

“For instance, the EVOLUTION of humanity beyond a certain point, or, to speak more correctly, above a certain percentage, would be fatal for the moon. The moon at present feeds on organic life, on humanity. Humanity is a part of organic life; this means that humanity is food for the moon. If all men were to become too intelligent they would not want to be eaten by the moon. Fragments: Three

“But, at the same time, possibilities of EVOLUTION exist, and they may be developed in separate individuals with the help of appropriate knowledge and methods. Such development can take place only in the interests of the man himself against, so to speak, the interests and forces of the planetary world. The man must understand this: his EVOLUTION is necessary only to himself. No one else is interested in it. And no one is obliged or intends to help him. On the contrary, the forces which oppose the EVOLUTION of large masses of humanity also oppose the EVOLUTION of individual men. A man must outwit them. And one man can outwit them, humanity cannot. You will understand later on that all these obstacles are very useful to a man; if they did not exist they would have to be created intentionally, because it is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs. Fragments: Three

“This is the basis of the correct view of human EVOLUTION. There is no compulsory, mechanical EVOLUTION. Evolution is the result of conscious struggle. Nature does not need this EVOLUTION; it does not want it and struggles against it. Evolution can be necessary only to man himself when he realizes his position, realizes the possibility of changing this position, realizes that he has powers that he does not use, riches that he does not see. And, in the sense of gaining possession of these powers and riches, EVOLUTION is possible. But if all men, or most of them, realized this and desired to obtain what belongs to them by right of birth, EVOLUTION would again become impossible. What is possible for individual man is impossible for the masses. Fragments: Three

“The advantage of the separate individual is that he is very small and that, in the economy of nature, it makes no difference whether there is one mechanical man more or less. We can easily understand this correlation of magnitudes if we imagine the correlation between a microscopic cell and our own body. The presence or absence of one cell will change nothing in the life of the body. We cannot be conscious of it, and it can have no influence on the life and functions of the organism. In exactly the same way a separate individual is too small to influence the life of the cosmic organism to which he stands in the same relation (with regard to size) as a cell stands to our own organism. And this is precisely what makes his ‘EVOLUTION’ possible; on this are based his ‘possibilities.’ Fragments: Three

“In speaking of EVOLUTION it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical EVOLUTION is possible. The EVOLUTION of man is the EVOLUTION of his consciousness. And ‘consciousness’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The EVOLUTION of man is the EVOLUTION of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The EVOLUTION, of man is the EVOLUTION of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen.’ Fragments: Three

“There are,” he said, “two lines along which man’s development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right EVOLUTION the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man’s development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill. Fragments: Four

“The fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are concentrated round one idea, that is, they are taken in their mutual relationship from the point of view of one idea. This idea is the idea of EVOLUTION. Of course, not EVOLUTION in the sense of mechanical EVOLUTION, because such an EVOLUTION does not exist, but in the sense of a conscious and volitional EVOLUTION, which alone is possible. Fragments: Four

“The language in which understanding is possible is constructed upon the indication of the relation of the object under examination to the EVOLUTION possible for it; upon the indication of its place in the EVOLUTIONary ladder. “For this purpose many of our usual ideas are divided according to the steps of this EVOLUTION. Fragments: Four

“The souls that go to the moon, possessing perhaps even a certain amount of consciousness and memory, find themselves there under ninety-six laws, in the conditions of mineral life, or to put it differently, in conditions from which there is no escape apart from a general EVOLUTION in immeasurably long planetary cycles. The moon is ‘at the extremity,’ at the end of the world; it is the ‘outer darkness’ of the Christian doctrine ‘where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Fragments: Five

“But a complete parallel between man and the world can only be drawn if we take ‘man’ in the full sense of the word, that is, a man whose inherent powers are developed. An undeveloped man, a man who has not completed the course of his EVOLUTION, cannot be taken as a complete picture or plan of the universe — he is an unfinished world. Fragments: Five

“How a school is created on the principles of the law of octaves will be explained in due course. And this in its turn will explain to you one aspect of the union of the law of seven with the law of three. In the meantime it can be said only that in school teaching, a man is given examples of both descending (creative) and ascending (or EVOLUTIONary) cosmic octaves. Western thought, knowing neither about octaves nor about the law of three, confuses the ascending and the descending lines and does not understand that the line of EVOLUTION is opposed to the line’ of creation, that is to say, it goes against it as though against the stream. Fragments: Seven

“They do,” said G., “only this is very far away from us and it is not worth your while even to try to understand this at present. Simply remember one thing. The only possible permanent idea of good and evil for man is connected with the idea of EVOLUTION; not with mechanical EVOLUTION, of course, but with the idea of man’s development through conscious efforts, the change of his being, the creation of unity in him, and the formation of a permanent I. Fragments: Eight

“As has been explained before, there are many qualities which men attribute to themselves, which in reality can belong only to people of a higher degree of development and of a higher degree of EVOLUTION than man number one, number two, and number three. Individuality, a single and permanent I, consciousness, will, the ability to do, a state of inner freedom, all these are qualities which ordinary man does not possess. To the same category belongs the idea of good and evil, the very existence of which is connected with a permanent aim, with a permanent direction and a permanent center of gravity. Fragments: Eight

“It does not mean that all the ways are closed to him. The way of the fakir and the way of the monk, which do not require any intellectual development, remain open to him. But the methods and the means which are possible for a man of a developed intellect are impossible for him. Thus EVOLUTION is equally difficult for a cultured or an uncultured man. A cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his essence. A less cultured man, living in more normal and more natural conditions, develops his essence at the expense of his personality. A successful beginning of workwork on oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and essence. Such an occurrence will give the greatest assurance of success. If essence is very-little developed, a long preparatory period of work is required and this work will be quite fruitless if a man’s essence is rotten inside or if it develops some irreparable defects. Conditions of this kind occur fairly often. An abnormal development of personality very often arrests the development of essence at such an early stage that the essence becomes a small deformed thing. From a small deformed thing nothing else can be got. Fragments: Eight

“The study of the work of the human organism as a chemical factory shows us three stages in the EVOLUTION of the human machine. Fragments: Nine

“All that has been said before about work on oneself, about the formation of inner unity and of the transition from the level of man number one, number two, and number three to the level of man number four and further, pursues one and the same aim. What is called according to one terminology the ‘astral body,’ is called in another terminology the ‘higher emotional center,’ although the difference here does not lie in the terminology alone. These are, to speak more correctly, different aspects of the next stage of man’s EVOLUTION. It can be said that the ‘astral body’ is necessary for the complete and proper functioning of the ‘higher emotional center’ in unison with the lower. Or it can be said that the ‘higher emotional center’ is necessary for the work of the ‘astral body.’ Fragments: Nine

“You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner EVOLUTION of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good essence there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism And so on But you must understand what this means I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion This does not mean that he should lose his faith On the contrary, it means being ‘disappointed’ in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely — as it is said in the Russian proverb — pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self decep­tion and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work But if he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before This is entirely unnecessary On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity In this case it is another matter, he will then be able not to ‘identify’ “There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is ‘professional occultism,’ in other words, professional charlatanism All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people. Fragments: Twelve

“But this is not what people begin with,” said one of our company. “They ask: Do we admit the existence of the ether? Or how do we look on EVOLUTION? Or why do we not believe in progress? Or why do we not think that people can and should organize life on the basis of justice and the common good? And things of this sort.” Fragments: Twelve

“We must remember that the ray of creation, as we have taken it, from the Absolute to the moon, is like a branch of a tree — a growing branch. The end of this branch, the end out of which come new shoots, is the moon. If the moon does not grow, if it neither gives nor promises to give new shoots, it means that either the growth of the whole ray of creation will stop or that it must find another path for its growth, give out some kind of lateral branch. At the same time from what has been said before we see that the growth of the moon depends on organic life on earth. It follows that the growth of the ray of creation depends on organic life on earth. If this organic life disappears or dies the whole branch will immediately wither, in any case all that part of the branch which lies beyond organic life. The same thing must happen, only more slowly, if organic life is arrested in its development, in its EVOLUTION, and fails to respond to the demands made upon it. The branch may wither. This must be remembered. To the ray of creation, or let us say to its part earth-moon, exactly the same possibility of development and growth has been given as is given to each separate branch of a big tree. But the accomplishment of this growth is not at all guaranteed, it depends upon the harmonious and right action of its own tissues. The development of one tissue stops and all the others stop. Everything that can be said of the ray of creation or of its part earth-moon equally refers to organic life on earth. Organic life on earth is a complex phenomenon in which the separate parts depend upon one another. General growth is possible only on the condition that the ‘end of the branch’ grows. Or, speaking more precisely, there are in organic life tissues which are evolving, and there are tissues which serve as food and medium for those which are evolving. Then there are evolving cells within the evolving tissues, and cells which serve as food and medium for those which are evolving. In each separate evolving cell there are evolving parts and there are parts which serve as food for those which are evolving. But always and in everything it must be remembered that EVOLUTION is never guaranteed, it is possible only and it can stop at any moment and in any place. Fragments: Fifteen

“The evolving part of organic life is humanity. Humanity also has its evolving part but we will speak of this later; in the meantime we will take humanity as a whole. If humanity does not evolve it means that the EVOLUTION of organic life will stop and this in its turn will cause the growth of the ray of creation to stop. At the same time if humanity ceases to evolve it becomes useless from the point of view of the aims for which it was created and as such it may be destroyed. In this way the cessation of EVOLUTION may mean the destruction of humanity. Fragments: Fifteen

“We have no clues from which we are able to tell in what period of planetary EVOLUTION we exist and whether the moon and the earth have time to await the corresponding EVOLUTION of organic life or not. But people who know may, of course, have exact information about it, that is, they may know at what stage in their possible EVOLUTION are the earth, the moon, and humanity. We cannot know this but we should bear in mind that the number of possibilities is never infinite. Fragments: Fifteen

“Of course there are very many people who consider that the life of humanity is not proceeding in the way in which according to their views it ought to go. And they invent various theories which in their opinion ought to change the whole life of humanity. One invents one theory. Another immediately invents a contradictory theory. And both expect everyone to believe them. And many people indeed do believe either one or the other. Life naturally takes its own course but people do not stop believing in their own or other people’s theories and they believe that it is possible to do something. All these theories are certainly quite fantastic, chiefly because they do not take into account the most important thing, namely, the subordinate part which humanity and organic life play in the world process. Intellectual theories put man in the center of everything; everything exists for him, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth. They even forget man’s relative size, his nothingness, his transient existence, and other tilings. They assert that a man if he wishes is able to change his whole life, that is, to organize his life on rational principles. And all the time new theories appear evoking in their turn opposing theories; and all these theories and the struggle between them undoubtedly constitute one of the forces which keep humanity in the state in which it is at present. Besides, all these theories for general welfare and general equality are not only unrealizable, but they would be fatal if they were realized. Everything in nature has its aim and its purpose, both the inequality of man and his suffering. To destroy inequality would mean destroying the possibility of EVOLUTION. To destroy suffering would mean, first, destroying a whole series of perceptions for which man exists, and second, the destruction of the ‘shock,’ that is to say, the force which alone can change the situation. And thus it is with all intellectual theories. Fragments: Fifteen

“The process of EVOLUTION, of that EVOLUTION which is possible for humanity as a whole, is completely analogous, to the process of EVOLUTION possible for the individual man. And it begins with the same thing, namely, a certain group of cells gradually becomes conscious; then it attracts to itself other cells, subordinates others, and gradually makes the whole organism serve its aims and not merely eat, drink, and sleep. This is EVOLUTION and there can be no other kind of EVOLUTION. In humanity as in individual man everything begins with the formation of a conscious nucleus. All the mechanical forces of life fight against the formation of this conscious nucleus in humanity, in just the same way as all mechanical habits, tastes and weaknesses fight against conscious self-remembering in man.” Fragments: Fifteen

“Can it be said that there is a conscious force which fights against the EVOLUTION of humanity?” I asked. Fragments: Fifteen

“It would take a long time to explain,” said G., “and it cannot have a practical significance for us at the present moment. There are two processes which are sometimes called ‘involutionary’ and ‘EVOLUTIONary.’ The difference between them is the following: An involutionary process begins consciously in the Absolute but at the next step it already becomes mechanical — and it becomes more and more mechanical as it develops; an EVOLUTIONary process begins half-consciously but it becomes more and more conscious as its develops. But consciousness and conscious opposition to the EVOLUTIONary process can also appear at certain moments in the, involutionary process. From where does this consciousness come? From the EVOLUTIONary process of course. The EVOLUTIONary process must proceed without interruption. Any stop causes a separation from the fundamental process. Such separate fragments of consciousnesses which have been stopped in their development can also unite and at any rate for a certain time can live by struggling against the EVOLUTIONary process. After all it merely makes the EVOLUTIONary process more interesting. Instead of struggling against mechanical forces there may, at certain moments, be a struggle against the intentional opposition of fairly powerful forces though they are not of course comparable with those which direct the EVOLUTIONary process. These opposing forces may sometimes even conquer. The reason for this consists in the fact that the forces guiding EVOLUTION have a more limited choice of means; in other words, they can only make use of certain means and certain methods. The opposing forces are not limited in their choice of means and they are able to make use of every means, even those which only give rise to a temporary success, and in the final result they destroy both EVOLUTION and involution at the point in question. Fragments: Fifteen

“But as I have said already, this question has no practical significance for us. It is only important for us to establish the indications of EVOLUTION beginning and the indications of EVOLUTION proceeding. And if we remember the full analogy between humanity and man it will not be difficult to establish whether humanity can be regarded as evolving. Fragments: Fifteen

“So that in the actual situation of humanity there is nothing that points to EVOLUTION proceeding. On the contrary when we compare humanity with a man we quite clearly see a growth of personality at the cost of essence, that is, a growth of the artificial, the unreal, and what is foreign, at the cost of the natural, the real, and what is one’s own. Fragments: Fifteen

“Everything I have said till now I have said about the whole of humanity. But as I pointed out before, the EVOLUTION of humanity can proceed only through the EVOLUTION of a certain group, which, in its turn, will influence and lead the rest of humanity. Fragments: Fifteen

“The idea of initiation, which reaches us through pseudo-esoteric systems, is also transmitted to us in a completely wrong form. The legends concerning the outward rites of initiation have been created out of the scraps of information we possess in regard to the ancient Mysteries. The Mysteries represented a special kind of way in which, side by side with a difficult and prolonged period of study, theatrical representations of a special kind were given which depicted in allegorical forms the whole path of the EVOLUTION of man<man and the world. Fragments: Fifteen

“When we talked before about the octaves of food in the three-story factory we saw that ‘all the finer ‘hydrogens’ needed for the working, the growth, and the EVOLUTION of the organism were prepared from three kinds of food, that is, from food in the strict meaning of the word — eatables and drink, from air which we breathe, and from impressions. Now let us suppose that we could improve the quality of food and air, feed, let us say, on ‘hydrogen’ 384 instead of 768 and breathe ‘hydrogen’ 96 instead of 192. How much simpler and easier the preparation of fine matters in the organism would be then. But the whole point is that this is impossible. The organism is adapted to transform precisely these coarse matters into fine matters, and if you give it fine matters instead of coarse matters it will not be in a position to transform them and it will very soon die. Neither air nor food can be changed. But impressions, that is, the quality of the impressions possible to man, are not subject to any cosmic law. Man cannot improve his food, he cannot improve the air. Improvement in this case would be actually making things worse. For instance ‘hydrogen* 96 instead of 192 would be either very rarefied air or very hot incandescent gases which man cannot possibly breathe; fire is ‘hydrogen’ 96. It is exactly the same with food. ‘Hydrogen’ 384 is water. If man could improve his food, that is, make it finer, he would have to feed on water and breathe fire. It is clear that this is impossible. But while it is not possible for him to improve his food and air he can improve his impressions to a very high degree and in this way introduce fine ‘hydrogens’ into the organism. It is precisely on this that the possibility of EVOLUTION is based. A man is not at all obliged to feed on the dull impressions of H48, he can have both H24, H12, and H6, and even H3. This changes the whole picture and a man who makes higher ‘hydrogens’ the food for the upper story of his machine will certainly differ from one who feeds on the lower ‘hydrogens.’” Fragments: Sixteen

“But it is certainly wrong to say that unless a man enters one of these ways he has no more chances. ‘Ways’ are simply help; help given to people according to their type. At the same time the ‘ways’ the accelerated ways, the ways of personal, individual EVOLUTION as distinct from general EVOLUTION, can precede it, can lead up to it, but in any case they are distinct from it. Fragments: Seventeen

“Whether general EVOLUTION is proceeding or not is again another question. It is enough for us to realize that it is possible, and therefore evolu’ on for people outside the ‘ways’ is possible. Speaking more correctly there are two ‘ways.’ One we will call the ‘subjective way.’ It includes all four ways of which we have spoken. The other we will call the ‘objective way.’ This is the way of people in life. You must not take the names ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ too literally. They express only one aspect. I take them only because there are no other words.” Fragments: Seventeen

“Obyvatel is a strange word in the Russian language. It is used in the sense of ‘inhabitant,’ without any particular shade. At the same time it is used to express contempt or derision — ‘obyvatel’ — as though there could be nothing worse. But those who speak in this way do not understand that the obyvatel is the healthy kernel of life. And from the point of view of the possibility of EVOLUTION, a good obyvatel has many more chances than a ‘lunatic’ or a ‘tramp.’ Afterwards I will perhaps explain what I mean by these two words. In the meantime we will talk about the obyvatel. I do not at all wish to say that all obyvatels are people of the objective way. Nothing of the kind. Among them are thieves, rascals, and fools; but there are others. I merely wish to say that being a good obyvatel by itself does not hinder the ‘way’ And finally there are different types of obyvatel. Imagine, for example, the type of obyvatel who lives all his life just as the other people round him, conspicuous in nothing, perhaps a good master, who makes money, and is perhaps even close-fisted. At the same time he dreams all his life of monasteries, for instance, and dreams that some time or other he will leave everything and go into a monastery. And such things happen in the East and in Russia. A man lives and works, then, when his children or his grandchildren are grown up, he gives everything to them and goes into a monastery. This is the obyvatel of which I speak. Perhaps he does not go into a monastery, perhaps he does not need this. His own life as an obyvatel can be his way. Fragments: Seventeen