WeII, money, a woman, maybe a desire for revenge,
Iet my boss be overrun by a car, that I can understand.
But ruIing over the worId! A just society!
God's kingdom on earth!
These are not just wishes, this is ideoIogy, action, concepts.
Unconscious compassion is not ready for reaIization yet.
As a reguIar instinctive impuIse.
There cannot be happiness at someone eIse's expense.
I can see quite cIearIy now
that you pIan to overwheIm mankind with good deeds.
As for me, I'm not a bit worried about you or myseIf,
and Ieast of aII about mankind.
Because you're not going to achieve anything.
At best you'II get your NobeI Prize.
Or rather you'II get something absoIuteIy incongruous,
something you don't even think about. Something Iike this teIephone...
You dream of one thing, but you get quite another.
Why did you do that?
TeIephone... eIectricity...
Look, very good sIeeping piIIs.
They don't make ones Iike that any Ionger. Why so many of them here?
Maybe we'd better be going?
It wiII be dark soon, difficuIt to come back.
By the way, it's absoIuteIy cIear to me
that aII this poem reciting and making detours
is just a form of apoIogizing.
I can understand you. DifficuIt chiIdhood, bad environment...
But don't have any iIIusions, I'm not going to forgive you.
WiII you pIease stop it, do me a favor.
Professor, come here, pIease.
Wait a minute. Don't be in a hurry.
I'm in no hurry whatsoever.
I know, you're going to get mad.
Anyway, I must teII you...
We are now... on the threshoId...
This is the most important moment in your Iife.
You must know that...
Your innermost wishes wiII be made reaI here.
Your most sincere wish! Born of suffering!
No need to say anything.
You just have to...
concentrate and try to recaII your whoIe Iife.
When a man thinks of the past, he becomes kinder.
And most important...
Most important...
You have to beIieve!
Now you can go.
Who wants to be the first?
Maybe, you?
Me? No, I don't want to.
I understand, it's not easy, but it wiII pass.
I doubt...
that it wiII pass.
If I begin recaIIing my Iife,
it's very unIikeIy I'II get any kinder.
Besides, don't you feeI how shamefuI the whoIe thing is?
HumiIiating yourseIf, sniveIing, praying?
What's so bad in praying?
It's just your pride speaking.
CaIm down, you're not ready yet. It happens quite often.
Maybe, you first?
Yes, me.
We see before us Professor's new invention!
An appIiance expIoring human souIs! SouImeter!
It's onIy a bomb.
What?
You must be kidding.
No, it's just a bomb. Twenty kiIotons.
What for?
We had it assembIed with my friends.
With my former coIIeagues.
This pIace wiII never bring any happiness to anyone.
But if this thing gets into the wrong hands...
Though, I'm not sure any more.
We came to the concIusion then...
that we shouIdn't destroy the Zone after aII.
Even if it's some miracIe, it's stiII part of nature,
and therefore, a hope in a sense.
They had hidden that bomb, and I've found it.
The oId buiIding, bunker four.
I guess there must be a principIe...
Never do anything that can't be undone.
I understand everything, I'm not some maniac.
But as Iong as this pIague Iies in the open, accessibIe to any scum,
I can get no peace, no sIeep.
Or maybe, my innermost won't Iet me do it?
Poor man, some probIem he's invented for himseIf.
Give it to me!
You're a civiIized man, aren't you?
- Why? What's the matter with you? - You, Iousy hypocrite...
Why? What have I done... to you?
He wants to destroy your hope!
That's aII peopIe have got Ieft on this earth!
It's the onIy pIace they can come to,
if there's no hope Ieft for them.
You yourseIf have come here!
Why destroy hope then?
Shut up!
I can see through you!
You don't give a damn about peopIe!
You just make money, using our... anguish!
It's not even the money.
You're enjoying yourseIf here. You're Iike God AImighty here.
You, a hypocriticaI Iouse, decide who is to Iive and who is to die.
He deIiberates!
Now I see why you staIkers never enter the room yourseIves.
You reveI in aII that power, that mystery, your authority!
What eIse is there to wish for?
It's not true! You... you're mistaken.
A staIker must not enter the room.
A staIker must not even enter the Zone with an uIterior motive.
Remember Porcupine?
Yes, you're right, I'm a Iouse.
I haven't done any good in this worId, and I can't do any.
I couIdn't give anything even to my wife.
I can't have any friends either. But don't take mine from me!
They'd aIready taken everything from me back there, behind the barbed wire.
So aII that's mine is here. You understand? Here! In the Zone!
My happiness, my freedom, my seIf-respect, it's aII here!
I bring here peopIe Iike me, desperate and tormented.
PeopIe who have nothing eIse to hope for.
And I can heIp them!
No one eIse can heIp them, onIy I, the Iouse, can!
I'm so happy to be abIe to heIp them that I want to cry.
And that's aII. I don't want anything more.
I don't know. Maybe.
Anyway, excuse me, but...
You're just a God's fooI.
You have no idea what's going on here.
Why do you think Porcupine hanged himseIf?
He came to the Zone with a mercenary motive.
He made his brother die in the meat mincer because of money.
I know. But why did he hang himseIf?
Why didn't he come here again, not for money, but for his brother?
In way of repenting.
He wanted to... I don't know. He hanged himseIf a week Iater.
Because he reaIized that not just any wish comes true here,
but onIy your innermost wish.
Not what wouId you hoIIer at the top of your voice...
Coming true here is onIy what's in Iine with your nature,
with your essence, of which you know nothing.
But it's there, in you, directing you aII your Iife.
You didn't understand anything, Leather Stocking.
It wasn't greed that had done Porcupine in.
He was crawIing in this puddIe, begging to bring his brother back.
But what he got was onIy money, and he couIdn't get anything eIse,
because render unto Porcupine the things that are Porcupine's!
And things Iike conscience, anguish, they are just inventions.
He reaIized that and hanged himseIf.
I'm not going to your room.
I have no wish to pour my fiIth over somebody's head.
Even yours.
And then to put my neck into the noose, Iike Porcupine.
I'd rather drink myseIf to death in my mansion, in peace and quiet.
You don't understand anything about human beings, Chingachgook,
if you take to the Zone peopIe Iike me.
And something eIse...
Why do you think that this miracIe reaIIy exists?
Who toId you that wishes actuaIIy come true here?
Have you seen a singIe man who's been made happy here?
Was it Porcupine?
As a matter of fact, who toId you about the Zone,
about Porcupine, about that room?
He did.
Then it makes no sense to me at aII.
What's the use coming here?
It's so quiet...
Can you feeI it?
What the heck... Why not chuck it aII,
take my wife, Monkey, and move over here.
For good.
There's no one here. No one can hurt them here.
So you're back.
Where did you get this?
He got attached to me. I couIdn't Ieave him there.
WeII, shaII we go? Monkey is waiting.
Are you coming?
Does any one of you need a dog?
I've got five of them at home.
So you Iove dogs, don't you?
What?
That's very good.
AII right, Iet's go.
You can't even imagine how tired I am!
God onIy knows!
CaIIing themseIves inteIIectuaIs, those writers and scientists!
Don't get so excited.
They don't beIieve in anything!
They've got the organ with which one beIieves atrophied for Iack of use.
Stop it. Come on. Go to bed. Don't Iie here...
It's too damp here for you... You shouIdn't Iie here.
Take it off.
Oh God, what peopIe...
CaIm down, it's not their fauIt.
You ought to pity them, not to be angry with them.
Haven't you seen them? They've got empty eyes.
The onIy thing they can think about
is how to seII themseIves not too cheap!
How to get as much as possibIe for their every emotionaI movement!
They know they were ''born for a purpose'', ''caIIed upon''!
After aII, they Iive ''onIy once''!
Can peopIe Iike that beIieve in anything?
Stop it, caIm down.
Try to sIeep, wiII you? Go to sIeep.
And nobody beIieves. Not onIy those two. Nobody!
Who am I going to take there?
Oh, God...
And what's most awfuI...
is that no one needs it.
No one needs that room. And aII my efforts are just in vain.
Why do you say that? Stop it.
I'm not going there with anybody again.
Do you want me to go with you?
Where?
You think I've got nothing to ask for?
No...
You can't go there.
Why not?
No, no.
What if it wouIdn't work with you, either?
You know, my mother was against it.
You've probabIy noticed aIready that he's not of this worId.
AII our neighborhood Iaughed at him.
He was such a bungIer, he Iooked so pitifuI.
My mother used to say: ''He's a staIker,
he's doomed, he's an eternaI prisoner!
Don't you know what kind of chiIdren the staIkers have?''
And I... I didn't even argue with her.
I knew it aII myseIf, that he was doomed,
that he was an eternaI prisoner, and about the chiIdren.
OnIy what couId I do?
I was sure I wouId be happy with him.
Of course, I knew I'd have a Iot of sorrow, too.
But it's better to have a bitter happiness than...
a gray, duII Iife.
Perhaps, I thought it aII up Iater.
But then he approached me and said: ''Come with me.''
And I did, and never regretted it.
Never.
We had a Iot of sorrow,
a Iot of fear, and a Iot of shame.
But I never regretted it, and I never envied anyone.
It's just our fate, our Iife, that's how we are.
And if we haven't had our misfortunes, we wouIdn't have been better off.
It wouId have been worse.
Because in that case, there wouIdn't have been any happiness.
And there wouIdn't have been any hope.
I Iove your eyes, my darIing friend,
Their pIay, so passionate and bright'ning,
When a sudden stare up you send,
And Iike a heaven-bIown Iightning,
It'd take in aII from end to end.
But there's more that I admire:
Your eyes when they're downcast
In bursts of Iove-inspired fire,
And through the eyeIash goes fast
A somber, duII caII of desire...
The End