Chapter 12.
Jester.
It was one of the beautiful summer days.
In the warm air hung a delicious scent of all kinds of herbs and flowers.
Sometimes, on days like this, Lulu would make an appointment somewhere in the city after work, and we would walk home together, through the wonderful streets.
So it happened this day. It was already evening, and at the appointed time I waited at the appointed place. Lulu, as always, was in good spirits.
We walked slowly, looking at everything and everyone around. On the street, as always, in the late afternoon there were many inhabitants of all ages. Everyone enjoyed the wonderful weather. Young people were sitting on the benches, hotly discussing something and laughing.
So, gradually we entered the square. In the evening, various artists and musicians often performed there.
We were lucky. The performance had just begun, and we stopped to listen with pleasure. The musicians were from somewhere far away, and began their bewitching song in their distant and incomprehensible language.
There were many children around, and they came forward and danced. After standing for a while, we moved on.
Our way lay to the most beautiful old embankment, along the same wonderful river.
The sun was already setting, and the sky was shimmering around with all the colors.
It seemed, that this is it, and there is happiness, and how little the inhabitant needs to be happy.
A bridge was visible in the distance. Approaching, we noticed that under it, and around, there are small groups of some suspicious inhabitants. Most of them were homeless.
Lulu and I had nowhere to turn off, and we, quickening our pace, quickly walked under the bridge, without looking around. There were mountains of rubbish all around. In the twilight there was a terrible stench from long-unwashed bodies and urine. My head began to spin, hoarse voices sounded all around ...
I threw some change to the beggar sitting by the wall.
Finally, we almost ran out from under this ominous bridge, walked away with relief.
Walking briskly, I happily recounted something encouraging to Lulu.
Suddenly…. there was a…. heartbreaking cry.
I continued to walk by inertia, but suddenly my legs stopped obeying me. Something cramped in my stomach, my legs buckled, and I stopped rooted to the spot, unable to take another step. The whole body was seized by some unknown horror, and it seemed no force would make me turn.
It would seem, what there could be something unusual in the cry of some homeless inhabitant, who has lost his appearance ???
But it wasn't.
There was a … code in that scream ... Yes ... a code.
Imagine, that you know some terrible, very dangerous and carefully hidden mystery. You assume, that someone else knows it, but the chance of meeting someone, who knows the same secret is so negligible, that it is almost impossible.
And suddenly you hear a word, directly related to this secret.
Lulu, seeing something was wrong, tried to pull me away from this ominous place. But in vain. As if all my strength abruptly left me. On trembling legs, I turned back towards the bridge. And step by step, we went back.
He stood with his back to us ... All in rags. Dirty black hair below the shoulders. The nails are like those of a wild animal, the face is also overgrown.
As we approached, my head was dizzy with fear and an intolerable stench.
Slowly turning around, the very beggar to whom I threw a little change said:
- I could not let you go, without giving something in return.
Then I recognized him. Rather, I noticed him much earlier, as he was strikingly different from all the vagabonds I have seen. The first time, I noticed him, he was dressed in a very expensive suit and with a dainty violin, which must have cost a fortune.
He tried to play some kind of naive melody, which he did not succeed, smiling stupidly at the same time. At the same time, he tried to dance so absurdly, that it became embarrassing for him. It was evident, he was beginning to have some kind of insanity, and he was clearly mentally ill.
It was obvious, in the past he was engaged in some kind of intellectual activity. Finding himself at some time in a difficult life situation, absolutely unsuitable, unable to do anything with his hands, he tried to somehow feed himself.
Almost no one served him. Passers-by turned away from him like a leper.
Over time, the situation only got worse, he slowly, but surely, went to the bottom.
It was almost impossible to recognize him.
Of course, as soon as I noticed him, I told Lulu about him. She knows almost everyone in our area. And I was not wrong.
This is the story she told me. Half a year ago, told to her by a friend, one of the royal cooks who accompanied him at that time.
Many years ago, the king of our lands went to unwind with his retinue to the borders of the neighboring kingdom.
The whole valiant company of knights stopped at one forgotten lake. In the most secluded place, they decided to stay for a couple of days. They set up a tent camp.
The evening was warm. The sun almost went down.
Despite the beautiful landscape around, a kind of tension hung in the air.
And this sunset.
Everything around was quiet.
There were no birds, no insects …nothing.
Everyone hurried to their tents, unable to look at the sky.
The first night was very hot and stuffy. Temperatures usually drop at night, but not this time. So, tossing and turning from side to side, the king could not sleep and decided to leave the tent for a walk into the fresh air.
The night was incredible. Never before have so many stars been seen at once!
The king walked towards the nearest pine forest. It was easy to walk. Soon, his thoughts were already far away, probably somewhere among the stars.
Suddenly, at the edge of the forest, he ordered the guards to stop.
Then, he went straight into the thicket alone.
He returned a few hours later.
Without a word, he went straight to the camp.
The next morning, everyone hastily packed up and rode back to the castle.
Several years have passed since this strange incident.
One fine day, one of the closest scholars asked the king for an urgent audience.
On the same day, the king received him.
The king had never seen him like this in his life. The scientist was excited about something. Of course, this has happened before, when some of the pundits selflessly talked about their discoveries.
But in the eyes of his old friend, the king read something, that simultaneously shocked him and ... some kind of endless inexplicable animal fear and helplessness ...
- Your Majesty, he began. I would like to talk to you about a student of mine.
- You know, I devoted my whole life to science and achieved a lot in this life.
- The fact is, the scientist said doomed and almost powerless, that I was at a dead end. This has never happened to me. I have always found answers to all riddles and questions. Or at least, I knew, in which direction I should go, to solve them.
- What I recently encountered, just turned my whole world into dust, literally while I was drinking tea. Something very grandiose happened, for which I have no explanation. As if I was standing on the border of a change of eras.
- What I will offer you, my master, is undoubtedly dangerous as never before, and brings to our world an unknown, from which I begin to shake at the slightest thought, but it is no longer possible to get away from this.
- You need to meet with him in private. No security, no witnesses. Just you and him.
The king was white. In five minutes, he aged a decade.
“ I'm ready,” he whispered under his breath.
- As far as I know, Lulu continued, a few days later such a meeting took place.
“After this meeting, the king has a new jester.
- Yes, you heard right, it was a jester.
- Never since that very meeting, the king did not let him go. They have always been together.
- It was one of the many young homeless and vagrants, who were picked up on the street, barely alive and placed in one of the orphanages.
- Soon, by chance, the teachers of the local school, began to notice something special, elusive to the eye and at the same time frightening.
- As the teachers whispered, the student was distinguished by brilliant mathematical abilities, such, that they soon ceased to keep up with the flight of his thoughts, and in general, what he was talking about.
- He soon became the real pride of the kingdom. Upon reaching youth, it became known about him in almost all the lands around us. It was the pride of the inviting party, to invite him to some world symposium.
When he approached the blackboard, explaining some theory, there was a kind of ominous silence, and such tension, that it became incomprehensible how any mysteries could still exist before this genius.
There was something delightful and frightening about it at the same time.
This story flew through my head, as Lulu and I approached him in disbelief.
With his hand he invited us to sit by the nearest wall. Holding hands with Lulu, so as not to faint from the smell of sewage and urine, we sank down next to him.
For a while he sat with his eyes closed, his head bowed.
It even seemed to us, that he had already forgotten about us. But we could not leave.
Finally, he spoke barely audibly.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and for the generous donation you gave me, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”
“That's all I have,” he said gloomily, rocking back and forth from his seat.
All around the homeless there was some kind of squabble with screams and a fight.
But at that moment, the whole world narrowed down to the three of us. Like a dome covered us. Nothing else existed.
“So… he began.
- There was one young man, who, from early childhood, was carried away by a passion for knowledge of the world around him.
- Fortunately, the young man was endowed with nature, it is not known, for what merits, the ability to educate himself. He studied practically all the known works of the great philosophers and alchemists of all times.
- By adolescence, he solved most of the problems, that other scientists have barely heard of their existence.
- Yes, you probably already guessed, that we are talking about your humble servant.
- It got to the point, that the solution of the most difficult problems turned into a sport for me.
- You know, at some stage, the tasks themselves ceased to interest me!
- It became interesting for me only to observe how long this or that theorem, unsolvable for centuries, will last!
- A month, two?
- None of the existing world theorems and problems lasted more than six months against me !!! Do you understand ???
- I rushed to each task with such fury, that the most powerful hurricane could envy me.
- Even eternity itself trembled for a moment, the very secret of time could not hold back my onslaught!
He exclaimed this phrase with a kind of devilish gleam in his eyes, that Lulu and I recoiled, only now feeling ourselves sitting soaking wet in cold sweat. All bones began to ache from some kind of spasm.
- All this endless devilish triumph lasted for several years, continued our interlocutor.
- Once again, I left no stone unturned from one of the last remaining unsolved mathematical riddles, having brilliantly solved it. The entire world community applauded me, exclaiming that a miracle had happened ...
- But I was not happy.
- It was a dead end.
- It was only the beginning... The beginning of the nightmare, that haunted me since childhood, like an unstoppable avalanche, from which there is nowhere to hide. Which every day devoured me from somewhere, from its most sinister and black depths.
Then he paused.
- So, despite the fame, no one even knew, that all my successes, in fact, were not worth a penny.
Everything remained a sham.
I have always hit the same insurmountable wall.