Solyaris Page #6

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His suffering over the impossibility

of loving mankind as a whole?

How much time has passed since then?

Somehow I can't figure it out.

Help me.

See, I love you.

But love is a feeling

we can experience

but never explain.

One can explain the concept.

You love that which you can lose:

Yourself, a woman, a homeland.

Until today, love was simply

unattainable to mankind, to the Earth.

Do you understand me, Snaut?

There are so few of us.

A few billion altogether. A handful!

Maybe we're here in order

to experience people

as a reason for love.

He seems to have a fever.

How did Gibarian die?

You still haven't told me.

I'll tell you. Later.

Gibarian didn't die of fear.

He died of shame.

Shame-the feeling

that will save mankind.

Mama, I...

I'm two hours late.

I know.

How was your trip?

Fine. I'm a little tired,

but it was fine.

My God, it's running slow again.

I'll go adjust it.

You've got plenty of time.

You know, it's really embarrassing,

but for some reason...

I've completely forgotten your face.

You don't look well.

Are you happy?

Somehow that concept

seems irrelevant here.

That's really a pity.

I'm very lonesome now.

Why do you hurt our feelings?

What have you been waiting for?

Why haven't you called?

You're leading

some sort of strange life.

You're filthy and unkempt.

How did you make

such a mess of yourself?

What's this?

Wait here. I'll be right back.

How are you?

Everything all right?

Where's Hari?

What's that?

There's no more Hari.

"Kris, it's terrible that I had

to deceive you,

but there was no otherway.

This is best for both of us.

I asked them myself.

You mustn't blame anyone.

Hari."

She did it for you.

Snaut, listen.

Later, Kris. Calm down.

How... how did it...

The annihilator?

A burst of light and wind.

Yes.

Things weren't working out

between us towards the end.

Listen, Snaut.

Why are we being tortured like this?

In my opinion, we have lost

our sense of the cosmic.

The ancients understood it perfectly.

They never would have asked

why or what for.

Remember the myth of Sisyphus.

Since we transmitted

your encephalogram,

none of the guests have come back.

Something incomprehensible is starting

to take place in the Ocean.

Islands have begun to form

on the surface.

First one. Then the next day

there were several more.

Are you trying to tell me

that it understood us?

That quickly?

But at least there's hope, eh, Kris?

- How old are you?

- Fifty-two. Why?

Have you been here long?

- You must have seen my forms.

- I did.

Listen, having spent so many years

here on the station,

do you still feel a clear connection

to your life down there?

You like dire questions.

Soon you'll ask me

about the meaning of life.

Wait. Don't be ironic.

It's a banal question.

When man is happy,

the meaning of life and other

eternal themes rarely interest him.

These questions should be asked

at the end of one's life.

But we don't know when life will end.

That's why we're in such a hurry.

Don't rush.

The happiest people are those who are

not interested in these cursed questions.

To ask is always

the desire to know.

Yet the preservation of

simple human truths requires mystery.

The mysteries of happiness,

death and love.

Maybe you're right,

but try not to think about all that now.

To think about it

is to know the day of one's death.

Not knowing that day

makes us practically immortal.

Fine, then.

In any event,

my mission is finished.

But what next?

Return to Earth?

Little by little,

everything will return to normal.

I'll even find

new interests and acquaintances.

But I won't be able

to give myself to them fully.

Never.

Do I have the right to turn down

even an imagined possibility

of contact with this Ocean

which my race has been trying

to understand for decades?

Should I remain here?

Among things and objects

we both touched?

Which still bear the memory

of our breath?

What for?

In the hope that she'll return?

But I don't harbor this hope.

The only thing left for me

is to wait.

I don't know what for.

New miracles?

Are you tired?

No, I feel great.

You know, Kris...

I think it's time

you returned to Earth.

You think so?

THE END:

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