Chapter 41

CHAPTER 41
The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov

Chapter.Page
41.871	As my first meeting with this contemporary terrestrial three-brained being—with whom I saw the said experiments and thanks to whom, in all probability, information about the fundamental sacred cosmic law of Heptaparaparshinokh will again be established there and become accessible to everyone, even from among the ordinary contemporary beings with a thirst for knowledge—may turn out to be extremely interesting and instructive to you, I shall therefore tell you all about this meeting also, in all possible detail.
41.871	“This first meeting of mine with him took place three terrestrial years before my final departure from that solar system.
41.871	“Once while traveling over the continent Asia in that part of it called ‘Bokhara,’ I chanced to meet and get on friendly terms with a certain three-brained being belonging to the group inhabiting that part of the surface of your planet, who was by profession what they call there a ‘dervish’ and whose name was ‘Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin.’
41.871	“He was very typical of those contemporary terrestrial three-brained beings who have a tendency to enthuse over, as is said there, ‘higher matters’ and who always automatize themselves to speak about them without any essential cognition with anyone they meet, on opportune and inopportune occasions. And whenever we met, he also liked to talk only about these matters.
41.871	“One day we started talking about what is called there the ‘ancient-Chinese-science’ named ‘Shat-Chai-Mernis.’
41.871-2	“This science is nothing but fragments of the above-mentioned totality of true information concerning the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh cognized by the great Chinese twin brothers and by other genuine ancient scientists and then called by them the ‘totality of true information about the law of Ninefoldness.’
41.872	“I have already told you that certain fragments of this knowledge remained intact and passed from generation to generation through a very limited number of initiated beings there.
41.872	“I must here say that if these fragments, which have by chance remained intact and which have passed and are still passing there from generation to generation through this very limited number of initiated beings, do not fall into the hands of contemporary ‘scientists’ there, then this will be a great stroke of luck for the future three-brained beings of your planet.
41.872	“And it will be a great stroke of luck because, if these surviving fragments of genuine knowledge were to fall into the hands of the contemporary ‘scientists’ there, then thanks to their inherency of wiseacring, they would without fail cook up all kinds of their ‘scientific porridge’ about the sense put into these fragments, and thereby the, without this, scarcely smoldering Reason of all the other three-brained beings would be entirely extinguished; and besides, these last remnants of the former great attainments of their ancestors would thereby be also completely ‘wiped’ off the face of this ill-fated planet.
41.872	“And so, my boy, once when I was talking with this dervish Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin about the ancient Chinese science Shat-Chai-Mernis, he, in the course of conversation, proposed that I should go with him to another dervish, a friend of his, a great authority on this ancient Chinese science, to talk about it with him.
41.872	“He told me that his friend resided in ‘Upper Bokhara,’ far away from everyone, and was there occupied with certain experiments concerning that same science.
41.873	“Having no special business in that town where we then happened to be, and as his friend resided just among those mountains the nature of which I had long intended to see, I at once agreed and on the very next day we set off.
41.873	“From that town where we were, we walked three days.
41.873	“Finally, high up in the mountains of Upper Bokhara, we stopped at a small gorge.
41.873	“This part of ‘Bokhara’ is called ‘Upper’ because it is very mountainous and much higher than that part of Bokhara which, to distinguish it, is called ‘Lower Bokhara.’
41.873	“At the said gorge my acquaintance the dervish Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin asked me to help him move a small stone slab to one side, and when we had moved it a small aperture was revealed underneath it from the edges of which two iron bars projected.
41.873	“He put these bars together and began to listen.
41.873	“Soon a strange sound was heard coming from them, and to my astonishment Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin said something into that aperture in a language unknown to me.
41.873	“After he had finished speaking, we moved the stone slab back to its old place and went on.
41.873	“After having gone a considerable distance we stopped in front of a rock and Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin began to wait very tensely for something, when suddenly the enormous stone which lay there opened and formed an entrance into a kind of cave.
41.873	“We entered this cave and began moving forward when I noticed that our way was lit up alternately by what are called gas and electricity.
41.873	“Although this lighting astonished me and several questions about it arose in me, I nevertheless decided not to disturb the serious attentiveness of my fellow traveler.
41.873-4	“When we had again walked a considerable distance further, we saw at one of the turnings coming to meet us another terrestrial three-brained being who met us with the greetings customary there on such occasions and led us further.
41.874	“He, as it appeared, was the friend of my first dervish acquaintance.
41.874	“He was already according to terrestrial understanding quite elderly, and being tall in comparison with those living round about seemed extraordinarily thin.
41.874	“His name was Hadji-Asvatz-Troov.
41.874	“While talking with us, he led us to a small section of the cave, where we all sat down on the felt that covered the floor there and, while conversing, began to eat what is called cold Bokharan ‘Shila-Plav’ out of earthen vessels which this elderly being brought to us from a neighboring section.
41.874	“While we were eating, my first dervish acquaintance told him by the way that I was also very interested in the science Shat-Chai-Mernis and explained briefly which questions were already well known to me and what in general we had talked about before.
41.874	“After that, the dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov began to question me himself and I gave him corresponding answers, but of course in that form already habitual to me by which I could always hide my real nature.
41.874	“There on your planet I became in general so skillful in talking in this manner that your favorites always took me for one of their brother scientists.
41.874	“From subsequent conversation with him, I understood that this respected Hadji-Asvatz-Troov had already been long interested in the said knowledge and that during the last ten years he had been studying it exclusively only practically.
41.874	“I also understood that from this studying he had attained results such as it is no longer proper to terrestrial three-brained beings to attain.
41.875	“When I had made all this clear to myself, I was much astonished and became very interested to know how this had come about, because I already very well knew that this knowledge had already long before ceased to exist in the Reason of the three-brained beings of the Earth and that this venerable Hadji could scarcely have heard of it often and thus have had an interest, as happens among them, gradually formed in him.
41.875	“And indeed, my boy, it has already long ago become proper there to the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy to become interested only in what they often see or often hear about, and whenever they do become interested in something, then this interest of theirs stifles all other being-necessities in them, and it will always seem obvious to them that what interests them at the given moment is just the very thing that ‘makes the world go round.’
41.875	“When the relations necessary in such a situation had been established between this sympathetic dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov and myself, that is to say, when he had already begun to talk with me more or less normally without the so to say ‘mask’ which it has already become fully proper to contemporary beings to wear in their relations with other beings like themselves, especially when they meet these others for the first time—then, when these necessary relations had been established between us, I asked him, of course in the corresponding approved manner, why and how he had become interested in this branch of true knowledge.
41.875	“Here you might as well know that in general there on the surface of your planet on each separate part, during the process of the ordinary being-existence of these strange three-brained beings, their own special forms of external relationship with each other have gradually been formed and have passed from generation to generation.
41.876	“And these various forms of mutual relationship among them were formed of themselves after the being-property of sensing the inner feeling of similar beings in relation to oneself had become quite atrophied in their psyche, which property must infallibly exist in all beings of our Great Universe without distinction of form or place of arising.
41.876	“At the present time among them, good or bad mutual relationships are established exclusively only according to outer calculated manifestations, chiefly according to what they call ‘amiability,’ that is, by empty words in which there is not a single atom of what is called ‘the result of an inner benevolent impulse,’ such as arises in general in the presences of all beings in direct contact with ‘those similar to themselves.’
41.876	“There, at present, however, one being may inwardly wish another well, yet if for some reason or other this well-wishing being were in some way to express himself to another in words conventionally regarded as not good, then all is over; in all the different spiritualized localizations of the latter, data are invariably crystallized which always by association engender in his common presence the conviction that the former, who as a matter of fact inwardly wished him very well, only exists to do him always and everywhere every kind of what they call ‘vileness.’
41.876	“It has become very important there, particularly during recent times, to know every kind of form of ‘verbal address’ in order to have friends and not to make oneself ‘enemies.’
41.876	“The abnormal existence of these strange three-brained beings has not only spoiled their own psyche, but this abnormal existence of theirs has by repercussion gradually also spoiled the psyche of almost all the other one-brained and two-brained terrestrial beings.
41.877	“Data for engendering the aforesaid inner being-impulse are not yet formed either in the presences of any of those terrestrial one-brained or two-brained beings with whom these strange three-brained beings who have taken your fancy have long had and still have frequent contact and relations.
41.877	“Although these being-data are still formed in the presences of certain terrestrial one-brained and two-brained beings of other exterior forms, as for example those named by them ‘tigers,’ ‘lions,’ ‘bears,’ ‘hyenas,’ ‘snakes,’ ‘phalangas,’ ‘scorpions,’ and so on, who have not had and do not now have in their mode of existence any contact or relation with these biped favorites of yours, nevertheless there is already formed in their common presences, thanks of course to the abnormally established conditions of the ordinary existence of your favorites, one very strange and highly interesting particularity, namely, that the enumerated beings, tigers, lions, bears, hyenas, snakes, phalangas, scorpions, and so on, perceive the inner feeling of fear in other beings before them as enmity towards themselves, and therefore strive to destroy these others in order to avert the ‘menace’ from themselves.
41.877-8	“And this so happened because your favorites, thanks always to the same abnormal conditions of existence, have gradually become, as they themselves say, ‘cowardly’ from head to foot, and because at the same time the need of destroying the existence of others has been inculcated in them, also from head to foot. And so, when they, being already cowards ‘of the highest degree,’ are about to destroy the existence of the beings of these other forms, or when they chance to meet such beings—who it must be said, to their misfortune and to our regret, have become at the present time already much stronger than they, physically as well as in other being-attainments—then they become ‘afraid,’ as they say there in such case, ‘to the point of wetness.’
41.878	“At the same time, thanks to the inherent need in their presences to destroy the existence of other beings breeding on their planet, they at such moments contrive with their whole Being how to destroy the existence of these beings of other forms.
41.878	“And as a result of all this, from the radiations issuing from these favorites of yours inherent in their peculiar presences there are gradually formed in the common presences of these other beings of the aforementioned forms—side by side with the data which should exist in them for engendering the aforementioned impulse of ‘instinctively showing respect and sympathy’ to every form of being—other data with a special functioning, thanks to which the feeling of cowardice appearing in the common presences of other beings, chiefly in the presences of your favorites, is perceived as a ‘menace’ to themselves.
41.878	“That is why whenever these other mentioned one-brained and two-brained terrestrial beings meet with your favorites, they, wishing to escape the danger to their own existence, always strive to destroy the existence of these favorites of yours.
41.878-9	“There on your planet also, all beings, in the beginning, in spite of difference of exterior form and brain system, existed together in peace and concord; and even now occasionally, one of these favorites of yours perfects himself firstly to the degree of sensing with all his spiritualized parts that every being or, as is said, ‘every breathing creature’ is equally near and dear to our COMMON FATHER CREATOR; and secondly, thanks to having actualized in himself being-Partkdolg-duty, he attains the complete destruction in his presence of the data for engendering the impulse of cowardice before beings of other forms, in consequence of which these beings of other forms not only do not attempt to destroy the existence of this perfected being from among your contemporary favorites, but even show him every kind of respect and service, as to a being with greater objective possibilities.
41.879	“In short, all this and a multitude of other small factors, also ensuing from the abnormal existence of these favorites of yours, have finally brought about the formation among them, for mutual relationship, of various forms of, as they express it, ‘verbal amenity,’ and, as I have already told you, each locality there has its own special form.
41.879	“The attitude taken towards me by this sympathetic terrestrial three-brained being Hadji-Asvatz-Troov was benevolent chiefly because I was the friend of a good friend of his.
41.879	“It must here be remarked by the way, that the three-brained beings of this part of the surface of your planet are the only ones among whom the relationship of true friendship still exists.
41.879	“Among them, as it is general everywhere among three-brained beings, and just as it was in the first epochs on that planet also, not only is a friend himself a friend, but his near relatives and his friends are also regarded as friends and are treated just the same as the friend himself. “Because I then passed for the friend of the dervish Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin, who was a very good friend of this Hadji-Asvatz-Troov, he then at once treated me in a very friendly manner.
41.879	“I wished to make the relationship still better, as I very much wanted to know how he had become interested in this knowledge and how he had attained to such scientific accomplishments as were unsurpassed on the Earth, and therefore throughout our conversation I liberally used those forms of verbal amenity which were customary in that locality.
41.879-80	“When during our conversation which dealt exclusively with the knowledge now called there Shat-Chai-Mernis, we came to speak of the nature and the significance of vibrations in general, and when we happened to talk about the octave of sound, Hadji-Asvatz-Troov then said that not only had the octave of sound seven aspects of relatively independent whole manifestations, but that the vibrations of any one of these relatively independent manifestations follow, in their arising as well as in their manifestation, the same conformity to law.
41.880	“Continuing to speak further about the laws of vibration of sound, he said:
41.880	“‘I myself became interested in the knowledge Shat-Chai-Mernis through the laws of vibrations of sound; and they were the cause of my devoting the whole of my life subsequently to this knowledge.’
41.880	“And, after thinking a little to himself, he related as follows:
41.880	“‘I must first tell you, my friends, that although I was a very rich man before I entered the brotherhood of the dervishes, yet I was very fond of working at a certain craft, namely, I used to make various stringed musical instruments of the kind called “sayaz,” “tar,” “kiamancha,” “zimbal,” and so on.
41.880	“‘And even after I had entered the brotherhood I devoted all my free time to this profession of making musical instruments chiefly for our dervishes.
41.880	“‘And the cause of my further serious interest in the laws of vibrations was the following:
41.880	“‘Once the Sheikh of our monastery called me to him and said:
41.880-1	“‘“Hadji! In the monastery where I was still an ordinary dervish, whenever during certain mysteries our musician dervishes played the melodies of the sacred canticles, all of us dervishes always experienced from these melodies of the sacred canticles particular sensations corresponding to the text of the given sacred canticle.
41.881	“‘“But here during my long and careful observations, I have never yet noticed any particular effect on our brother dervishes from these same sacred canticles.
41.881	“‘“What is wrong? What is the cause of this? To find out the cause has recently been my aim and I have now called you to speak with you about it, and perhaps you, as an amateur specialist at making musical instruments, can help me to clear up this question which interests me.”
41.881	“‘Thereupon we began to enquire into this question from every aspect. “‘After long deliberations we finally decided that probably the whole cause lay in the nature itself of the vibrations of the sounds. And we came to this conclusion because from our conversation it further became clear that in the monastery in which our Sheikh had been an ordinary dervish, they played, besides the tambour, stringed musical instruments, while here, in our monastery, they played these same sacred melodies exclusively on wind instruments.
41.881	“‘We further decided to replace immediately all the wind instruments of our monastery by stringed instruments; but then another very serious question arose for us, namely, that it would be impossible to get together from among our dervishes the necessary number of specialists for playing the stringed instruments.
41.881	“‘Then our Sheikh, having thought a little, said to me:
41.881	“‘“Hadji, you, as a specialist in stringed instruments, try—perhaps you can manage to make a stringed musical instrument on which any dervish, without being a specialist, can produce the sounds of the necessary melody merely by a mechanical action, such as, for example, turning, striking, pressing, and so on.”
41.881-2	“‘This proposal of our Sheikh then immediately greatly interested me, and I undertook the task with great pleasure.
41.882	“‘After this decision I got up and, having received his blessing, went home.
41.882	“‘Having returned home, I sat down and thought very seriously for a long time; and the result of all my thinking was that I decided to make an ordinary zimbal and to devise with the help of my friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran such a mechanism of little hammers that their striking should produce the corresponding sounds.
41.882	“‘And that same evening I went to this friend of mine, the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran.
41.882	“‘Although this dervish friend of mine was regarded by his comrades and acquaintances as rather a queer sort, nevertheless they all respected and esteemed him, as he was very sensible and learned and often talked of such questions that everyone, willy-nilly, had to ponder about them seriously.
41.882	“‘Before his initiation into the dervishes, he had been a real professional, namely, a watchmaker.
41.882	“‘And in the monastery also, he devoted all his free time to this favorite craft of his.
41.882	“‘My friend this dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran had by the way recently become much enthused over a certain “freakish idea,” namely, he was trying to make a mechanical watch which would show the time very exactly without the aid of any spring whatsoever.
41.882	“‘This freakish idea of his he explained in the following brief and very simple formulation:
41.882-3	“‘“Nothing on the Earth is absolutely still, because the Earth itself moves. On the Earth only gravity is still and then only in half the space occupied by its volume. I wish to get such an absolute equilibrium of levers that their movement, which must necessarily proceed from the tempo of the movement of the Earth, should exactly correspond to the required movement of the hands of a clock, and so on and so forth.”
41.883	“‘When I came to this queer friend of mine and explained to him what I wanted to obtain and what help I expected of him, he also immediately became very much interested in this and promised to help me in every way possible.
41.883	“‘And the very next day we started work together.
41.883	“‘From this joint work, the skeleton of this mechanical musical instrument devised by me was soon ready. I myself marked and spaced the places for the corresponding strings, while my queer friend continued to work on the mechanism of the little hammers.
41.883	“‘And then, when I had finished stretching the strings and had begun to tune them correspondingly, just then that began which aroused that further interest in me which brought me to the experiments concerning the laws of vibrations which I began and am still continuing.
41.883	“‘It began in this way:
41.883	“‘I must first tell you that before this I already very well knew that half the length of any string gives twice the number of vibrations of a whole string of equal volume and density, and in accordance with this principle I arranged on the zimbal what are called “bridges” for the strings and then began correspondingly to tune all the strings for a certain ancient sacred melody in “one-eighth-toned” sounds, of course according to my “Perambarrsasidaan” or, as it is called in Europe, “tuning fork,” producing the vibrations of the Chinese absolute note do.
41.883-4	“‘It was during this tuning that I first clearly constated that the principle, namely, that the number of the vibrations of a string is inversely proportional to its length, does not always but only sometimes coincide with the obtaining of what is called a “common blending harmonic consonance.”
41.884	“‘And this constatation so greatly interested me that I then gave all my attention to the investigation of this alone and entirely ceased to occupy myself with the said zimbal.
41.884	“‘Then it so chanced to happen that my queer friend also became very much interested in the same thing, and together we began to investigate this fact which had so astonished us both.
41.884	“‘Only after several days did my friend and I notice that we were neglecting our main work, and therefore we decided from that day to devote half our time to finishing the zimbal and the other half to the said investigations.
41.884	“‘And indeed we very soon managed to carry out both of these tasks of ours in such a way that one should not hinder the other.
41.884	“‘Soon the mechanical zimbal devised by us was ready; it was entirely satisfactory to us and I must say turned out to be something of the kind of the “new Greek hand organ” but with quarter-tone sounds and a little larger in size.
41.884	“‘It was set in action by turning, by which the little hammers struck the corresponding strings; and this correspondence was obtained by means of bundles of flattened reeds in which we had made dents, into which during the turning the ends of the little hammers fell and set the corresponding strings vibrating.
41.884	“‘For each separate sacred melody we prepared a separate bundle of these flattened reeds fastened together, and they could be changed at will according to the melody required.
41.884-5	“‘When we finally handed over our original zimbal to our Sheikh and told him what interested us most of all at that moment, he not only gave us his blessing to leave the monastery for a while for our purpose to occupy ourselves with the question which interested us, but even put at our disposal a large sum of money from the resources accumulated in the monastery.
41.885	“‘We then moved here and began to live far from other people and outside of our brotherhood.
41.885	“‘This friend of mine and I lived here all the time in complete peace and concord, and only recently did I lose forever this never-to-be-forgotten and irreplaceable friend of mine.
41.885	“‘And I lost him in the following lamentable circumstances:
41.885	“‘Several weeks ago he went down to the banks of the river Amu Darya to the town X for various materials and instruments.
41.885	“As he was leaving the town to return here, a “stray bullet” from the firing taking place between the Russians and the Anglo-Afghans struck him down on the spot, and I was immediately informed of this calamity by our mutual acquaintance, a Sart, who chanced to be passing there.
41.885	“‘Several days afterwards I brought his remains here and buried him over there,’ he added, pointing to a corner of the cave where a peculiar form of projection could be seen.
41.885	“Having said this, Hadji-Asvatz-Troov stood up and, making a gesture of prayer evidently for the repose of the soul of his friend, motioned with his head for us to follow him.
41.885	“We went and found ourselves again in the chief passage of the cave where this venerable terrestrial being stopped in front of a projection and pressed something, whereupon the block moved apart and behind it an entrance was formed into another section of the cave.
41.886	“This section which we came upon this time was, in addition to its formation by Nature Herself, also artificially constructed so originally—according to the Reason of your contemporary favorites—that I wish to describe its construction to you as detailedly as possible.
41.886	“The walls of this section, the ceiling, and even the floor were lined with several layers of very thick felt. As it was afterwards explained to me, this accidentally natural formation was utilized and adapted so that there should not penetrate there, from the other sections or from the outside in general, the slightest vibration from any manifestations whatsoever, either from any movement, rustling, shuffling, or even from vibrations produced by the breathing anywhere nearby of various large or small ‘creatures.’
41.886	“In this unusual interior were several ‘experimental apparatuses’ of strange form and among them was a specimen of the sound-producing instrument which I brought with me from the surface of your planet, the type of contemporary terrestrial sound-producing instrument which your favorites call a grand piano.
41.886	“The cover of this grand piano was open, and to each series of the strings visible beneath it were fitted independent little apparatuses which served as measures of the ‘degree of vivifyingness of the variously sourced vibrations’ and were called ‘vibrometers.’
41.886	“When I saw the large number of these vibrometers, the being-impulse of astonishment in my common presence increased to such an intensity as that which our Mullah Nassr Eddin expresses by the following words: ‘The limit of full satiety is bursting.’
41.886	“This impulse of astonishment had arisen and progressively increased in me from the moment when I saw, in the passages of the cave, the gas and electric lighting. “I had already then wondered whence and how all this was present here.
41.887	“I already well knew before this, that although these strange three-brained beings there have again learned to utilize such sources from cosmic formations for their, as they say, ‘lighting,’ yet these means for this lighting of theirs are obtained by them with the aid of very complicated adaptations and these adaptations are accessible only where there is a large group of them.
41.887	“And suddenly here was this lighting, so far from any such group, and particularly in the absence around the place of any signs by which, among contemporary beings, such possibilities are in general accompanied.
41.887	“And when I saw the aforementioned vibrometer for measuring the ‘degree of the vivifyingness of vibrations,’ the impulse of astonishment in me, as I have already said, increased to the highest degree.
41.887	“I was yet the more astonished because concerning this I also already knew very well that at that period there, nowhere did there exist such apparatuses by means of which it is possible to count any vibrations whatever, and therefore I again wondered—from where could this venerable old man dwelling in these wild mountains so far from the beings composing contemporary civilization, have obtained such apparatuses?
41.887	“Notwithstanding this interest of mine, I did not venture to ask the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov for an explanation just then; I did not venture to ask him, because it was to be feared that such a digressive question might change the course of the conversation which had begun and from which I expected the elucidation of the chief question which interested me.
41.887-8	“In this section of the cave were many other apparatuses as yet unknown to me, among which stood one very strange apparatus to which were attached several what are called ‘masks,’ from which something like pipes, made of the throats of cows, went somewhere up to the ceiling of the cave.
41.888	“Through these pipes, as I also afterwards learned, the air necessary for the breathing of the beings present during the experiments could flow in from outside, because this interior was then closed hermetically on all sides.
41.888	“The beings who were present during the experiments wore over their faces those masks which were on this strange apparatus.
41.888	“When we were all seated on the floor in the said section of the cave, the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov said among other things that during the period of his investigations he and his friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran had also occasion to study very thoroughly all the theories existing on the Earth about vibrations made at any time by serious terrestrial scientists.
41.888	“He said: ‘We studied the Assyrian theory of the great Malmanash, and the Arabian theory of the famous Selneh-eh-Avaz, and the Greek—of the philosopher Pythagoras—and of course all the Chinese theories.
41.888	“‘And we made apparatuses exactly similar to those with which all these ancient sages made their experiments, and we even made an addition to one of their apparatuses, which is now the chief one for my experiments.
41.888	“‘With this apparatus Pythagoras made his experiments, and it was then called a “monochord,” but now that I have altered it, I call it a “vibrosho.”’
41.888	“Having said this, he pressed something on the floor with one hand, and with the other he pointed to a very strangely shaped apparatus standing there and added that it was the same altered ‘monochord.’
41.888-9	“The apparatus he pointed to consisted of a two-meter board, the whole front half of which was divided into sections called ‘frets,’ like the neck of the sound-producing instrument called ‘guitar,’ and on it was stretched only one string.
41.889	“To the other half of this board were fastened a great number of vibrometers like those on the strings of the grand piano, and they were affixed in such a way that their indicating needles came just over the mentioned frets on the front side of the board.
41.889	“To the back half of this board was fastened a whole network of various small glass and metal pipes, which also served to produce sounds, but this time sounds obtained from vibrations arising from certain movements and currents of ordinary or of artificially compressed or rarefied air; and for measuring the vibrations of these sounds the same vibrometers served as were used for measuring the vibrations arising from the string.
41.889	“The venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov was about to say something, but just then from another section of the cave a small boy of the type called Uzbek entered, carrying on a tray a tea service and some green tea.
41.889	“When the boy had set the tray before us and had left, the venerable Hadji began to pour out the tea into the cups and turning to us jokingly uttered the following sentence used on such occasions in that locality:
41.889	“‘Let us imbibe this gift of Nature in the devout hope that it may redound to her glory!’
41.889	“Having uttered this, he continued further:
41.889	“‘I already feel that my sustaining forces are abating within me and hence I must imbibe the due quantity of what can aid the animation of the whole of myself until the next dose.’
41.889	“And with a gentle smile he began to drink his tea. While he was drinking it, I decided to take the opportunity to ask him about several questions which were all the time worrying me.
41.889	“First of all I asked him the following. I said:
41.890	“‘Highly esteemed Hadji! Until now I have been fully convinced that nowhere on the Earth does there exist an apparatus for the exact measurement of vibrations. Yet here I see so many of these measuring apparatuses.
41.890	“‘How am I to understand this? “‘Where did you get them?’
41.890	“To this the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov replied as follows:
41.890	“‘These apparatuses for our experiments were made by my deceased friend Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran, and it is chiefly to them that I am indebted for all my attainments in the knowledge of the laws of vibrations.
41.890	“‘Indeed,’ he continued, ‘there once existed on the Earth at the time of the flourishing of the great Tikliamish, all kinds of similar apparatuses, but at the present time there are none of these apparatuses, unless of course one reckons that, so to say, “childish bauble” now existing there in Europe by means of which vibrations can, as it were, be counted, and which there in Europe is called a “siren.” I even had such a siren when I began my elucidatory experiments.
41.890	“‘This siren was invented two centuries ago by a certain learned physician named Zehbek and it was so to say perfected in the middle of the last century, by a certain Cagniard-de-la-Tour.
41.890	“‘The construction of this childish bauble consists in this, that a current of condensed air is directed from a pipe on to a revolving disc drilled with little holes, each hole exactly coinciding in size with the opening of the main air pipe; and as this disc revolves, the passage for the current of air, entering these holes from the main pipe, is alternately opened and closed.
41.890-1	“‘And thus during the rapid revolution of this disc, successive shocks of air are obtained in the holes, and these produce an even-pitched tone of sound, and the number of revolutions recorded by the clock mechanism, multiplied by the number of the holes of the disc, should give the number of the vibrations of that sound made in the given interval of time.
41.891	“‘Unfortunately for the Europeans, neither the first inventor nor the perfecter of that siren knew that sound can be obtained not only from the action of genuine vibrations but also from the simple flow of air; and as this siren of theirs sounds only from the flow of air and not at all from natural vibrations, therefore the determination of the exact number of vibrations by the indications of that siren is out of the question…. “‘And, that sound can be produced from two causes, namely, from natural world-vibrations themselves and simply from the flow of air, is a very satisfying and interesting fact, and I shall now demonstrate it to you practically.’
41.891	“Having said this, the venerable Hadji stood up and brought from another section of the cave a pot of flowers in bloom, placed it in the center of that section of the cave, and then seated himself at the former monochord of the famous Pythagoras.
41.891	“Turning to us he said:
41.891	“‘I will now produce from these combined pipes only five different tones of sound, and you please look attentively at this pot of flowers and look at your watches and notice how long I continue to produce these sounds and also remember the numbers indicated by the hands of the vibrometers for these sounds.’
41.891	“Then with a pair of small bellows he began to blow air into the corresponding pipes, which then began a monotonous melody of five tones.
41.891-2	“This monotonous melody continued for ten minutes and not only did we remember the numbers indicated by the hands of the vibrometers but all these five tones of sound were even very well impressed on our organs of hearing.
41.892	“When Hadji had finished his monotonous music, the flowers in the pot were in the same state of bloom as before.
41.892	“Then Hadji moved from the former monochord to the sound-producing instrument grand piano, and having again directed our attention to the hands of the vibrometers, he began to strike successively the corresponding keys of the grand piano, which gave out the same monotonous melody of the same five tones of sound.
41.892	“And this time also, the hands of the vibrometers indicated the same figures.
41.892	“Five minutes had barely passed when at a nod from Hadji, we looked at the pot of flowers and saw that the flowers in the pot had begun very definitely to fade, and when after ten minutes, the venerable Hadji again ceased his music, there were then in the pot only the quite faded and withered stalks of the former flowering plants.
41.892	“Hadji then again sat down by us and said:
41.892	“‘As my investigations of long years have convinced me and as the science of Shat-Chai-Mernis states, there do indeed exist in the world two kinds of vibrations: namely, so to say, “creative vibrations” and “momentum vibrations.”
41.892	“‘As I have made clear by experiment, the best strings for the production of the said creative vibrations are those made of a certain definite metal or of goat gut.
41.892-3	“‘But strings made of other materials do not have this property. “‘Vibrations issuing from the latter kind of strings, and also the vibrations obtained from the flow of air, are purely momentum vibrations. In this case the sounds are obtained from those vibrations which arise from the mechanical action of the momentum evoked by them and from the friction of the air flowing from it.’
41.893	“Hadji-Asvatz-Troov continued:
41.893	“‘At first we made our experiments with the aid of this vibrosho alone, but one day when my friend Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran was in the Bokharan town of X on business, he happened to see a grand piano there at an auction sale of a number of things belonging to a Russian general who had left, and noticing by chance that its strings were made of just the metal needed for our experiments, he bought it and afterwards, of course with great difficulty, brought it up here into the mountains.
41.893	“‘When we had placed this grand piano here, we tuned its strings exactly according to those laws of vibrations indicated in the ancient Chinese science Shat-Chai-Mernis.
41.893	“‘For the correct tuning of the strings we then not only took the absolute sound of the ancient Chinese note “do,” but also, as that same science recommended, took into account the local geographical conditions, the pressure of the atmosphere, the form and dimensions of the interior, and the mean temperature of the surrounding space as well as of the interior itself and so on, and we even took into consideration from how many people human radiations might issue in this interior during our proposed experiments.
41.893	“‘And when we had thus exactly tuned this grand piano, then from that moment indeed, the vibrations issuing from it immediately acquired all those properties mentioned in the said great science.
41.893	“‘I will now demonstrate what it is possible to do with a knowledge of the laws of vibration attained by man, and with the vibrations issuing from this ordinary grand piano.’
41.893	“Having said this, he again stood up.
41.894	“This time he brought from another section of the cave an envelope, paper, and a pencil.
41.894	“On the paper he brought he wrote something, placed what he had written in the envelope, attached the envelope to a hook that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, again sat down at the grand piano, and without saying a word began just as before to strike definite keys, from which there was again produced a certain monotonous melody.
41.894	“But this time, in the melody, two sounds of the lowest octave of the grand piano were evenly and constantly repeated.
41.894	“After a little I noticed that it was becoming uncomfortable for my friend the dervish Hadji-Bogga-Eddin to sit still, for he began to fidget with his left leg.
41.894	“A little later he began to stroke his left leg and it was evident from the grimaces he made that his leg was paining him.
41.894	“The venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov paid no attention to this and continued to strike the designated keys.
41.894	“When at last he had finished, he turned to us and, addressing me, said:
41.894	“‘Friend of my friend, will you please get up, take the envelope off the hook and read what is written inside.’
41.894	“I stood up, took the envelope, opened it and read as follows:
41.894	“‘On each of you, from the vibrations issuing from the grand piano, there must be formed on the left leg an inch below the knee and half an inch to the left of the middle of the leg what is called a “boil.”’
41.894	“When I had read this, the venerable Hadji requested us both to bare the indicated places on our left legs.
41.894-5	“When we had bared them, there was to be seen a real boil precisely on that place of the left leg of the dervish Bogga-Eddin; but to the extreme amazement of the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov, there was nothing whatsoever to be seen on my leg.
41.895	“When Hadji-Asvatz-Troov ascertained this, he immediately leaped from his place like a young man and cried out very excitedly, ‘It cannot be!’ and began to stare fixedly at my left leg with the eyes of a madman.
41.895	“Almost five minutes passed in this manner. I confess that for the first time on that planet I was at a loss and could not immediately hit upon a way out of the situation.
41.895	“At last he came closely up to me and was about to speak, but just then, from his agitation, his legs began to tremble very violently, and he therefore sat down on the floor and motioned me to sit down also.
41.895	“And when we were seated he gazed at me with very sorrowful eyes and in a penetrating manner spoke to me as follows:
41.895	“‘Friend of my friend! In my youth I was a very rich man, so rich that no fewer than ten of my caravans, each with no fewer than a thousand camels, were constantly moving in all directions over our great Asia.
41.895	“‘My harem was considered by all who knew it to be the richest and best on the Earth, and everything else was on the same scale; in short, I had in superabundance everything that our ordinary life can give.
41.895	“‘But all this gradually so wearied and surfeited me that when at night I lay down to sleep, I thought with horror that the same would be repeated on the next day and that I would again have to drag along the same wearisome “burden.”
41.895	“‘Finally it became unendurable for me to live with such an inner state.
41.895	“‘And then, once, when I felt the emptiness of ordinary life particularly strongly, the idea first arose in me of ending my life by suicide.
41.896	“‘For several days, I thought quite cold-bloodedly and as a result categorically decided to do this.
41.896	“‘On the last evening as I entered the room where I intended to actualize this decision of mine, I suddenly remembered that I had not taken a last look at her who was half the cause of the creation and formation of my life.
41.896	“‘I remembered, namely, my own mother who was then still alive. And this recollection of her reversed everything within me.
41.896	“‘I suddenly pictured to myself how she would suffer when she learned of my end, and moreover by such a means.
41.896	“‘When I remembered her I pictured to myself, as if in reality, how she, my dear old mother, would break down in utter loneliness with resigned sighs and inconsolable sufferings, and from all this there arose in me such pity for her that the sobbing evoked by this pity almost choked me.
41.896	“‘And it was only just then that I cognized with my whole Being what my mother meant to me and what an inextinguishable feeling towards her ought to exist in me.
41.896	“‘From that time my mother became for me the source of my life.
41.896	“‘Thereafter whenever it may have been, day or night, no sooner did I remember her dear face than I became animated with new strength, and the desire to live, and to do everything only that her life might flow agreeably for her, was renewed in me.
41.896	“‘Thus it continued for ten years, until from one of those pitiless diseases she passed away and I was again left alone.
41.896	“‘After her death my inner emptiness again began to weigh me down more and more, day by day.’
41.896-7	“At this point of his narrative, when the glance of the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov happened to light upon the dervish Bogga-Eddin, he again jumped up from his place and, addressing him, said:
41.897	“‘My dear friend! In the name of our friendship pardon me, an old man, that I have forgotten to put an end to the pain caused you from the evil-carrying vibrations of the grand piano.’
41.897	“Having said this, he sat down at the grand piano and again began to strike the keys; this time he produced the sounds of two notes only, one from among those of the higher octaves of the grand piano, and the other from among the lower, always alternately, and as he began he almost shouted:
41.897	“‘Now thanks again to the vibrations engendered by means of the sounds of the grand piano, but this time good-carrying ones, let the pain of my faithful old friend cease.’
41.897	“And indeed five minutes had scarcely passed before the face of the dervish Bogga-Eddin again cleared up, and of the enormous horrible boil which until that time had continued to ornament his left leg, not a trace remained.
41.897	“Then the dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov again sat down beside us and, externally completely calm, continued to talk:
41.897	“‘On the fourth day after the death of my dear mother, I happened to be sitting in my room thinking in despair what was to become of me.
41.897	“‘Just then in the street near my window, a wandering dervish began to chant his sacred canticles.
41.897	“‘Looking out of the window and seeing that the singing dervish was old and had a very benign face, I suddenly decided to ask his advice and immediately sent my servant to invite him in.
41.897-8	“‘And when he had entered and, after the usual salutations, was seated on the “Mindari,” I told him of my soul-state without withholding anything at all.
41.898	“‘When I finished, the wandering dervish became intensely thoughtful and only after some time, looking at me steadily, he said as he rose from his place:
41.898	“‘“There is only one way out for you—devote yourself to religion.” “‘Having said this, he walked away uttering some prayer and left my house forever.
41.898	“‘After his departure, I again became thoughtful.
41.898	“‘This time the result of my thinking was that I decided the same day irrevocably to enter some “brotherhood of dervishes,” but only not in my native country but somewhere further away.
41.898	“‘The next day I began to divide and distribute all my wealth among my relatives and the poor, and in two weeks I left my native country forever and came here to Bokhara.
41.898	“‘Once here in Bokhara, I chose one of the numerous brotherhoods of dervishes and entered it, selecting just that brotherhood whose dervishes were known among the people for the severity of their mode of life.
41.898	“‘But unfortunately, the dervishes of this brotherhood soon produced a disillusioning effect on me, and I therefore transferred to another brotherhood; but there again the same thing happened, until finally I was enrolled as a dervish of the brotherhood of the monastery, the Sheikh of which set me the task of devising that mechanical stringed musical instrument of which I have already spoken to you.
41.898	“‘And after that, as I have also already told you, I became very much absorbed in the science of the laws of vibrations and have been occupied with it up to the present day.
41.898-9	“‘But today this science has compelled me to experience the same inner state as I experienced for the first time on the eve of the death of my mother, whose love had been my sole hearth of warmth which for so many years had sustained my empty and wearisome life.
41.899	“‘To this day I cannot recall without a shudder that moment when our physicians told me that my mother could not live more than one day.
41.899	“‘Then in that terrible state of mind, the first question that arose in me was: How shall I go on living?
41.899	“‘What further happened to me afterwards and what occurred I have also more or less told you.
41.899	“‘In a word, when I became absorbed in the science of vibrations, I gradually found for myself a new divinity.
41.899	“‘This science took the place of my mother for me and in the course of many years has proved just as sustaining, true, and faithful as my own mother had been to me, and until today I have lived and been animated only by its truths alone.
41.899	“‘Until now there has not yet been a single instance in which in their manifestations, the truths I have discovered concerning the laws of vibrations have failed to yield those precise results I expected.
41.899	“‘But today for the first time it has happened that the results I confidently expected were not obtained.
41.899	“‘My chief terror is that today I was more than ever careful in the calculations of the vibrations required for the given case, that is to say, I accurately calculated that the proposed boil should be formed on your body in just that place and in no other.
41.899	“‘And here the unprecedented has happened. Not only is it not in the designated place, but it has not even been formed on any part of your body at all.
41.899	“‘This science which until now has taken the place of my faithful mother, has today for the first time failed me, and in me at the present moment, there is indescribable grief.
41.899-900	“‘For today, I can still reconcile myself to this exceedingly great misfortune of mine, but what will be tomorrow—I cannot even picture to myself.
41.900	“‘And if I can still somehow reconcile myself today, it is only because I very well remember the words of our ancient great prophet “Issi-Noora” who said that “an individual is not responsible for his manifestations only when in death agony.”
41.900	“‘Evidently my science, my divinity, my second mother—is also in its “death agony,” if it has betrayed me today.
41.900	“‘I know very well that death agony is always followed by death.
41.900	“‘And you, dear friend of my friend, have today involuntarily become for me like those physicians who then on the eve of the death of my dear mother announced to me that my mother could not live more than another day.
41.900	“‘You are for me today just such a newsbearer, that this new hearth of mine will tomorrow also be extinguished.
41.900	“‘The same terrible feelings and sensations which I experienced then, from the moment when our physicians announced to me the imminent death of my mother until her death, are now being repeated in me.
41.900	“‘Just as then, in the midst of those terrible feelings and sensations, there was still a hope that perhaps she would not die, so also at this moment, something like that hope also still flickers in me.
41.900	“‘Ekh! Friend of my friend! Now that you already know my soul state, I earnestly ask you, can you explain to me what supernatural force was involved in this, that the anticipated boil which should infallibly have been formed was not formed on your left leg?
41.900	“‘For the faith that it must infallibly be formed long ago became in me as firm as the “Tookloonian-stone.”
41.900-1	“‘And it has become so firm and unshakable because for almost forty years, day and night, I have persistently studied these great laws of world vibrations until the understanding of their meaning and actualization has become for me, as it were, my second nature.’
41.901	“Having said these last words, this perhaps last great sage of the Earth looked into my eyes with an expression full of anticipation.
41.901	“Can you picture to yourself, my dear boy, my situation then? What could I reply to him?
41.901	“For the second time that day, I could not on account of this terrestrial being see any way out of the situation that had arisen.
41.901	“This time there was mixed in this state, so unusual for me, my ‘being-Hikhdjnapar,’ or, as your favorites say there, ‘pity,’ for that terrestrial three-brained being, chiefly because he was suffering through me.
41.901	“And this was because I was then clearly aware that if I spoke a few words to him, not only would he be calmed, but thanks to them, he would even understand that the fact that no boil was formed on my left leg proved the truth and precision of his adored science still more.
41.901	“I had full moral right to tell him the truth about myself, because by his attainments he was already ‘Kalmanuior,’ that is, a three-brained being of that planet with whom it is not forbidden us from Above to be frank.
41.901	“But at that moment I could in no way do this, because there was also present there the dervish Hadji-Bogga-Eddin who was still an ordinary terrestrial three-brained being, concerning whom, already long before, it was forbidden under oath from Above to the beings of our tribe to communicate true information to any one of them on any occasion whatsoever.
41.901	“This interdiction upon the beings of our tribe was made it seems on the initiative of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.
41.901-2	“This interdiction on the beings of our tribe was made chiefly because it is necessary for the three-brained beings of your planet to have ‘knowledge-of-being.’
41.902	“And any information, even if true, gives to beings in general only ‘mental knowledge,’ and this mental knowledge, as I have already once told you, always serves beings only as a means to diminish their possibilities of acquiring this knowledge-of-being.
41.902	“And since the sole means left to these unfortunate three-brained beings of your planet for their complete liberation from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer are just this knowledge-of-being, therefore this command was given to the beings of our tribe under oath concerning the beings of the Earth.
41.902	“And that is why, my boy, I did not just then in front of the dervish Bogga-Eddin decide to explain to this worthy terrestrial sage Hadji-Asvatz-Troov the real reason of his failure.
41.902	“But as both dervishes were waiting for my reply, I had in any case to tell them something, and therefore, addressing Hadji-Asvatz-Troov, I then told him only as follows:
41.902	“‘Venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov! If you agree to have my answer not now but a little later, then I swear by the cause of my arising that I will give you an answer which will fully satisfy you. You will be convinced not only that your beloved science is the truest of all sciences, but also that since the great scientists, the saints Choon-Kil-Tez and Choon-Tro-Pel, you are the greatest scientist of the Earth.’
41.902	“At this reply of mine, that venerable dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov merely placed his right hand on the place where the heart is located in terrestrial beings—and in that locality this gesture means ‘I believe and hope without doubt.’
41.902	“Then, as if nothing had happened, he turned to the dervish Bogga-Eddin and began again to speak about the science Shat-Chai-Mernis.
41.903	“In order completely to smooth over the previous embarrassment, I spoke to him again, and pointing to a niche in the cave where many colored silk materials were hanging in strips, I asked him:
41.903	“‘Most estimable Hadji! What is all that material over there in that niche?’
41.903	“To this question of mine he replied that those colored materials were also used for his experiments on vibrations, and he continued further: ‘I recently made it clear for myself which colors of the materials—and to what extent—act by their vibrations harmfully on people and on animals.
41.903	“‘If you wish I will show you this highly interesting experiment also.’
41.903	“Having said this, he again stood up and again went into the neighboring section from where he soon led in, this time with the help of the boy, three quadruped terrestrial beings called ‘dog,’ ‘sheep,’ and ‘goat’; he also brought in several strangely shaped apparatuses resembling bracelets.
41.903	“He put one of these special bracelets on the arm of the dervish Bogga-Eddin, and another on his own arm, meanwhile saying to me by the way as he did so:
41.903	“‘I do not put one of these apparatuses on you… as I have certain rather weighty reasons.’
41.903	“One of these strange collar-like apparatuses he then put on to the necks of the aforesaid goat, sheep, and dog, and indicating the vibrometers on these strange apparatuses, he asked us to remember or to note down all the figures which would be indicated by the hands of the vibrometers on each of these externally different beings.
41.903	“We looked at the figures shown by all the five vibrometers, and wrote these down in the ‘block notes’ or, as they are usually called there, ‘writing pads,’ which were given to us by the boy.
41.904	“After this, the dervish Asvatz-Troov again sat down on the felt and told us as follows:
41.904	“‘Every form of “life” has its own “total” of vibrations proper to it, which represents the totality of all the vibrations engendered from the various definite organs of the given form of life; and this total varies at different times in each form of life and depends on how intensely these variously caused vibrations are transformed by the corresponding sources or organs.
41.904	“‘Now all these heterogenous and variously caused vibrations always blend within the limits of the whole life in the general subjective what is called “chord of vibrations” of the given life.
41.904	“‘Just take as an example my friend Bogga-Eddin and myself.
41.904	“‘You see…’ and showing me the figures on the vibrometer that he had on his arm, he continued: “‘I have in general so many vibrations, and my friend Bogga-Eddin has so many more.
41.904	“‘This is because he is much younger than I and several of his organs function much more intensely than mine, and the corresponding vibrations in him thus “result” more intensely than mine.
41.904	“‘Look at the figures on the vibrometers of the dog, the sheep, and the goat. The sum total of the vibrations of the dog is three times greater than that of the sheep and half as much again as that of the goat, and in number of vibrations of his general chord of vibrations, this dog has a trifle less than myself and my friend.
41.904	“‘It must be remarked that among men, especially men of recent times, very many are to be met with who have not even as great a number of vibrations in the subjective chord of vibrations of their common presence as the number shown by the presence of this dog.
41.904-5	“‘This has come about because in most of these people I have just mentioned, one function for instance, and, namely, the function of emotion, which actualizes the main quantity of subjective vibrations, is already almost completely atrophied, and therefore the sum total of vibrations in them proves to be less than in this dog.’
41.905	“Having said this, the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov again stood up and went to the place where the materials of different colors lay.
41.905	“Then he began to unroll these colored materials consisting of what is called ‘Bokharan-silk,’ color by color; and with each piece of material, all of one color, he covered by means of specially constructed rollers not only all the walls and the ceiling but even the floor of this section of the cave, owing to which it appeared that the whole interior was draped with the material of that given color. And each of the colored materials changed the vibration number of all the forms of ‘life.’
41.905	“After experiments with the colored materials, this great terrestrial scientist of recent times asked us to follow him, and, going out of this section of the cave back again into its main passage, we went into another small passage leading off to the side.
41.905	“Behind us trailed along the goat, the sheep, and the dog with their improvised collars.
41.905	“We walked a fairly long time until we finally came to the most important section of these underground spaces.
41.905	“There the venerable dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov again went to one of the niches of that big underground space and, pointing to a big pile lying there of some material of a very strange color, said:
41.905	“‘This material is woven specially from the fibers of the plant “Chaltandr” and has its natural color.
41.905	“‘This plant Chaltandr is one of the rare formations on the Earth, the color of which not only does not have the ability to change the vibrations of other nearby sources, but is itself completely indifferent to all other vibrations.
41.905-6	“‘That is why for my experiments concerning vibrations arising not from color but from other causes, I especially ordered just this material and made out of it, for the whole of this underground space, something like a large “tent” and so adapted it that it could be moved in any direction and given any form desired.
41.906	“‘And with this peculiar tent I am now carrying out my experiments, namely, those experiments which I call “architectural.” And these architectural experiments are now making clear to me just which interiors—and to what extent—act harmfully upon people and upon animals.
41.906	“‘These architectural experiments have already fully convinced me not only that the size and the general interior form of a place have indeed an enormous influence on people and animals, but also that all interior what are called curves, angles, projections, breaks in the walls, and many other things producing a change in the vibrations proceeding in the atmosphere of the place, always contribute to change for better or for worse the subjective vibrations of the people and animals there.’
41.906	“When he began to make his experiments with that large tent, I also noticed among other things that the surrounding vibrations which changed owing to various causes nearby, act much more strongly on the common presences of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy than on the terrestrial one-brained and two-brained beings.
41.906	“This also evidently proceeds in consequence of all the abnormal inner and outer conditions of their ordinary being-existence.
41.906	“After these architectural experiments, he led us to still other small sections, where he also showed us many other experiments from which it could easily be seen and understood just which variously caused vibrations, and how, act upon the subjective chords of vibrations of your favorites.
41.906-7	“During these experiments, there were also indicated the results ensuing from vibrations formed from the radiations of other terrestrial beings of various types of those similar to them as well as of two-brained and one-brained beings, and also the vibrations engendered by their voices and by many other causative actions.
41.907	“He demonstrated and explained, among other things, also several experiments proving the harmful action on terrestrial contemporary beings of those causes which they themselves, as if intentionally, produce, especially in recent times, in great quantity—namely, what they call ‘works of art.’
41.907	“Among these latter were ‘pictures,’ ‘statues,’ and of course their famous music.
41.907	“From all the experiments demonstrated by this sage, it became clear that the most harmful vibrations, however, for contemporary terrestrial three-brained beings are those formed in them from their what are called ‘medical remedies.’
41.907	“I stayed in the underground domain of this truly learned being four terrestrial days, after which, with the dervish Bogga-Eddin, I returned again to that Bokharan town from which we had come; and thus ended my first meeting with him.
41.907	“During those four days he further demonstrated and explained to us much more concerning the ‘laws of vibrations’; but the most interesting thing for me personally was his last explanation about why and how, in that wild place remote from any place of the grouping of contemporary terrestrial beings, in this underground domain of his, there came to be gas and electric lighting.
41.907	“During this account of his, while elucidating a certain fact, this highly sympathetic terrestrial three-brained being could not restrain himself, for sincere tears suddenly began to flow, which then so touched me that even now I cannot forget it.
41.907-8	“Information about certain data elucidated by this account of his can serve for your further existence as good material for corresponding confrontations and for the elucidation of all the results of what are called ‘subjective destiny,’ that is to say, of those results which in general occur in our Great Megalocosmos where a multitude of relatively independent separate individuals arise and exist together.
41.908	“It often happens that while existing together, destiny, for any separate individual in the process of his personal existence, turns out for him personally to be absolutely unjust, but for all the others existing together with him, there are obtained from this in the objective sense, an abundance of just fruits. And that is why I wish to tell you about this in as much detail as possible, and will even try to repeat this account of his to you as verbatim as possible without changing anything.
41.908	“It was just before our departure from this underground domain, that is, from that place on your planet, which among other things, convinced me that the results of the attainments of the Reason of the former three-brained beings, their ancestors, have not even there been entirely lost. Even if the subsequent generations of the beings of this strange planet cease to transmute in themselves the cosmic truths discovered by their ancestors, yet although their already discovered truths have not progressed as is everywhere proper because of their abnormal being-existence, they are nevertheless automatically concentrated in that strange underground kingdom of your planet, to await further perfection and elaboration for subsequent three-brained beings.
41.908	“And so, when I enquired about the methods of the gas and electric lighting in this underground kingdom of his, he related to me the following:
41.908	“‘The causes of the origin of these two kinds of lighting are entirely different, and each of these two kinds of lighting has its own independent story.
41.909	“‘Gas lighting existed here from the very beginning, and was arranged here on the initiative of myself and my old friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran.
41.909	“‘As for the electric lighting, it came here only quite recently, and the initiator of its origin was also one of my friends who is still young and who came from among the Europeans.
41.909	“‘I think it will be better if I tell you the story of each kind of lighting separately.
41.909	“‘I will begin with the gas lighting.
41.909	“‘At the time when we first moved here, there was not far from here a certain holy place called the “holy cave” to which various “pilgrims” and “devotees” from all over Turkestan used to throng.
41.909	“‘The popular belief about this holy place was that once there had lived in this cave, as it were, the famous “Herailaz,” who later was taken up “alive” into Heaven.
41.909	“‘It was further said in this popular belief that he was taken alive into Heaven so unexpectedly that he even had no time to extinguish the fire which lit his cave.
41.909	“‘This last belief was supported by the fact that in that cave there was indeed an “undying fire.”
41.909	“‘And so, friend of my friend!
41.909	“‘As neither I nor my friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran could believe in the verity of this popular belief, we therefore decided to probe into the real cause of that peculiar phenomenon.
41.909	“‘Having at that time sufficient material possibilities and having at our disposal the conditions necessary for the investigation of this phenomenon without any hindrance from anyone whatsoever, we began to seek the source of its arising.
41.909-10	“‘It turned out that not far from that cave there flowed under the ground a stream which washed a medium composed of minerals, the totality of the action of which, on the water, resulted in the separation of an inflammable gas which through chance crevices in the ground found its way into that cave.
41.910	“‘And the chance inflammation somehow of this gas must obviously have been the cause of the display there of that undying fire.
41.910	“‘When my friend and I had made this cause definitely clear to ourselves and had at the same time discovered that the said spring was located not far from our cave, we decided to give an artificial outlet to that gas into these caves of ours.
41.910	“‘And so, from then on this gas flowed through the pipes of clay we laid, here into the main section of our cave, and from there we distributed it by means of “bamboos” according to our needs.
41.910	“‘As for the appearance in our caves of electric lighting, the history of its origin is as follows:
41.910	“‘Soon after we had settled in these caves, there once came to see me through a very old friend of mine also a dervish, a still very young European traveler who sought my acquaintance on account of always this same action of the laws of vibrations which interested me.
41.910	“‘We were soon close friends, as he turned out to be firstly, very serious in the search for truth, and secondly, very kind and “susceptible regarding the weaknesses of all others without exception.”
41.910	“‘He was studying the laws of vibrations in general; but his studies were primarily of those “laws of vibrations” which cause the formation of various diseases in people.
41.910	“‘During these studies of his, he among other things made clear the causes of the arising in people of the disease existing there under the name of “cancer,” and the possibility of destroying in people this malignant arising.
41.910-1	“‘He then constated and could already actualize in practice the possibility that, by a certain mode of life and a certain preparation, any man can consciously elaborate in himself vibrations by means of which, if he saturates the person infected with this terrible disease with those vibrations in a certain way and in a certain successiveness of the flow of time, it is possible to destroy it entirely.
41.911	“‘Although afterwards, when we parted, we did not meet again for a long time, we always had news of one another.
41.911	“‘I knew that this young friend of mine, soon after we parted, married in his native country and lived with his wife during the following years in full, as we say here in Asia, “family love and mutual moral support.”
41.911	“‘I was particularly interested in news of him which concerned his attainments in respect of the discovery of a cure for destroying in people just the aforesaid curse, because the causes of the arising of just those vibrations, owing to which data for that disease are crystallized, were closely related to the causes the elucidation of the vibrations of which were lately the chief interest in my life.
41.911	“‘I already knew that although he had not yet discovered any commonly accessible means of bringing about the destruction of that disease, yet according to trustworthy reports which frequently reached me, he employed for those who fell ill with this disease the not commonly accessible practicable cures which he had first constated, and their actualization in practice which he had attained, and he had always achieved the complete destruction of this terrible human scourge.
41.911	“‘I received very authentic information about these favorable results achieved by him in some tens of cases during that time.
41.911	“‘Then it happened that for reasons not dependent on either of us, I had no information about that young European, for about ten years.
41.911-2	“‘I was already beginning to forget his existence entirely when once, while I was specially absorbed in my occupations, I heard someone give our secret signal, and when I called and asked who was there, I at once recognized his voice; he asked me to make the way accessible for him to enter our underground domain.
41.912	“‘Needless to say, we were both glad to meet again and once more to exchange views on our beloved science of the “laws of vibrations.”
41.912	“‘When the excitement aroused by our new meeting had abated, and when we had unpacked all the things my young friend had brought on camels—among which by the way were some of the famous contemporary European what are called “Roentgen apparatus,” almost fifty “elements of Bunsen,” several “accumulators,” and several bales of different materials for “electric wiring”—we began to talk quietly and from what he related about himself I learned with great grief the following:
41.912	“‘Several years before, when on account of higher World-laws surrounding conditions and circumstances became such that scarcely anywhere on the Earth did people have any security for the morrow or any settled dwelling place, he suddenly noticed the appearance in his beloved wife of just that terrible disease, the search for a cure for which had lately been one of the chief aims of his existence.
41.912	“‘He was particularly horrified because, in view of the surrounding conditions which had arisen, he had no possibility of employing, for the destruction of that terrible disease, that cure he had obtained and which only he alone so far could actualize.
41.912	“‘And when he had calmed down somewhat after this terrible constatation, he then made the only possible decision—to wait patiently for a corresponding time, and meanwhile to try to create for his wife such conditions of life that the progressive process of that terrible disease should flow as slowly as possible.
41.912-3	“‘More than two years passed, during which time the surrounding conditions changed for the better; and this young friend of mine had the possibility of then preparing himself, at last, to employ that cure known only by him, against that terrible disease.
41.913	“‘And when he had begun to prepare himself to employ that cure, then on one sorrowful day for him, in one of the large European cities, in the jostling caused by some demonstration, he fell under an “automobile,” and although not quite killed, he received very serious bodily injuries.
41.913	“‘Owing to these injuries, firstly, his own life flowed for several months under a “lapse of memory,” and secondly, because of the absence of conscious and intentional direction on his part of the ordinary life of his wife, the process of the terrible disease flowed in her at an accelerated tempo, chiefly because during his illness she took constant and anxious care of him without sparing herself.
41.913	“‘And so, when this poor friend of mine finally regained consciousness, he soon saw to his horror that the disease process in his wife was already in its last stages.
41.913	“‘What could he do? What could be done… since owing to the consequences of the injuries he had received he was bereft of every possibility of preparing himself and of elaborating in himself the vibrations of the quality needed for the cure he had learned, of destroying in man that terrible disease.
41.913	“‘Thereupon and in view of all this and seeing no other way, he resolved to have recourse to that means of curing this illness which the representatives of contemporary European medicine employ and thanks to which, they allege, it is possible, as it were, to destroy in man that disease.
41.913	“‘Namely, he decided to have recourse to what are called X rays.
41.913	“‘The treatment with the said rays was begun.
41.914	“‘During the process of that treatment he noticed that, although the principal “concentration” or “gravitational center” of the disease in the body of his wife became, as it were, “atrophied,” yet at the same time a similar “concentration” was beginning, this time in an entirely different part of her body. “‘After several months of repeated what they call in Europe “seances,” a similar independent concentration made its appearance in her and this time in still a new place—the third.
41.914	“‘And as a result of it all, it transpired one sad day that the days of the invalid were numbered.
41.914	“‘Having constated this horror, my young friend decided to throw aside all the wiseacring of contemporary European medicine and without consideration for his own state, he began to elaborate in himself the necessary vibrations and to saturate the body of the invalid with them.
41.914	“‘Although, in spite of difficulties almost insurmountable to him personally, he succeeded in prolonging the existence of his wife for almost two years, yet nevertheless she finally died from just that terrible human disease.
41.914	“‘It must be noticed further that during the last period of the illness, when he had already ceased to employ the wiseacring of European medicine, two further similar independent concentrations were noticed in the body of his wife.
41.914	“‘When my young friend had more or less calmed down after that terrible issue, and again devoted part of his time to his beloved studies and researches of the great World-laws, then, among other things, he became much interested to know why, during the treatment of the cancer by X rays there had arisen in the body of his wife those independent concentrations he had constated which usually do not develop in this disease and which during his long years of previous observations he had never noticed.
41.915	“‘In view of the fact that the elucidation of this question which interested him turned out to be complicated and in the surrounding conditions of the places of habitation there, impracticable, he decided to come to me and with my help clear them up by experiment.
41.915	“‘And that was why he had brought with him all the necessary materials for these elucidatory experiments.
41.915	“‘The next day I put at his disposal one of the sections of the underground domain and several what are called “Salkamourskian” goats and everything else required for his elucidatory experiments.
41.915	“‘Among other preparations he, with the help of the Bunsen elements, first put into operation the action of the Roentgen apparatus.
41.915	“‘And already three days after his arrival, that began which was the cause of the arising of permanent electric lighting in our caves.
41.915	“‘And it began in the following way: As we were making certain experiments by means of my vibrometers and calculating the vibrations of the electric current which produces X rays in the Roentgen apparatus, we noticed that the number of vibrations of the electric current obtained by means of these Bunsen elements all the time either increased or diminished; and because the number of vibrations in a certain length of time were most important for our elucidations during the flowing of the electric current, it then became clear to us that that kind of electric current was absolutely useless for the elucidations we required.
41.915	“‘This constatation of ours very much discouraged and depressed my young friend.
41.915	“‘He immediately ceased the experiments he had begun and began to think.
41.915	“‘The following two days he thought unceasingly even during meals.
41.916	“‘At the end of the third day, as we were going together to the section where we usually had our repasts and were crossing the little bridge in the main section of our caves built over an underground stream, he suddenly stopped and striking his forehead, cried out excitedly “Eureka!”
41.916	“‘The outcome of that exclamation, then, was that on the next day, with the help of several hired Tadjiks, there were removed from various ancient and deserted mines lying near by, “lumps” of three kinds of “ore” as large as could be removed; and these were placed in a certain order in the bed of our underground stream.
41.916	“‘Then after laying that ore in the bed of the stream, he very simply connected from the stream two what are called terminals to the slightly charged accumulators which he himself had brought, and owing to this, the electric current of the famous what is called “amperage” began to flow into these accumulators.
41.916	“‘And when after twenty-four hours we passed the electric current thus obtained into the said accumulators through our vibrometers, then it turned out that although its amperage was not sufficient, yet the number of vibrations obtained from that electric current remained unchanged and absolutely uniform during all the time of its flow through my vibrometers.
41.916	“‘To increase the force of the electric current obtained in this peculiar way, he made “condensers” of various materials, namely, from goatskins, from a certain kind of “clay,” crushed “zinc ore” and “pine resin,” and in this way there was obtained the electric current required for the amperage and voltage for the Roentgen apparatus he had brought.
41.916	“‘By means of this peculiar source of electric current, we ultimately clearly proved to ourselves the following:
41.916-7	“‘Although by the employment of this contemporary device for the treatment of the said terrible disease in the whole body of man the place of the gravitational center becomes atrophied, yet it greatly facilitates the so to say “Metastases” in other glands and helps the sowing and successful flourishing of it in these new places.
41.917	“‘And so, friend of my friend! When my young friend had become satisfied after this elucidation, he ceased to be interested in the question in which he had then been absorbed, and when he returned home to Europe he left for our use that source which he had created and which required neither attention nor any outside material; and thereafter we gradually installed electric lamps where we needed them in our caves.
41.917	“‘Although that peculiar source of ours could not generate sufficient energy for all the lamps we had in our caves, yet by making switches everywhere and using the energy only when necessary, it was not wasted at other times but was gradually stored in accumulators, sometimes even in such a quantity that there was a surplus for various domestic purposes.’”
41.917	At this place of Beelzebub’s tale, all the passengers of the transsystem ship Karnak experienced something like a sweet-sour taste in the region of the inner part of their mouths.
41.917	This signified that the ship Karnak was now approaching some planet, namely, a place of unforeseen stopping.
41.917	And this planet was the planet Deskaldino.
41.917	Whereupon Beelzebub ceased his narration and, with Ahoon and Hassein, all three went to their “Kesshahs” to get ready for the descent to the planet Deskaldino.
41.917	Note: If anyone is very interested in the ideas presented in this chapter, I advise him to read, without fail, my proposed book entitled The Opiumists, if, of course, for the writing of this book there will be sufficient French armagnac and Khaizarian bastourma. THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 41 The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov

CHAPTER 41
The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov