«Ser Vantes. Donky Khot»
“It’s frightful for a person to be alone. Loneliness — is the destiny of heroes and madmen. It’s comfortable for people to be together. It seems to them that they are stronger, it gives confidence, that’s why they like, as Okudzhava wrote, to gather in troops. Troops or communities can be different — ideological, religious, professional, male and female. And people of one community do not like people of the other one. It gives them more confidence: feeling of your own troop is stronger when there is the other troop beside. The community of, let’s say, basketball men doesn’t like for example, dwarfs and the community of dwarfs doesn’t like basketball men. The community of sellers doesn’t like, let’s say, inspectors and there is an obvious contempt to the sellers in the community of inspectors. Drivers do not like policemen — policemen do not like drivers. And so on and so forth… Here is such a booth. And there is no troop in the world that likes knight-errant — these lonely defenders of truth. Lone person is always an eyesore to everybody; he irritates, provokes an obscure feeling of your own defectiveness and naturally protests. It’s possible to say that nobody likes knight-errant except their wives and it contributes to people consolidation — basketball men, sellers, policemen and inspectors gather into one big crowd. And this crowd doesn’t like those who differ from it. Doesn’t like and takes revenge. In all times and in all countries. Even in Spain”.
