Andrei: Funny thing: yoga has always been regarded as an idealistic, religious teaching, while you are proving to be a rabid physical materialist.
Victor: I’m neither. Idealism – materialism are simply points of view, instruments, say, kind of glasses we use to look at the world, some glasses we select are good for reading newspapers; others are good for watching TV. Religion starts where knowledge in its impotence gives way to faith, reason to morals and ethics; the borderline between them is always relative and conditional.
Bachkov, approaching: Sunbathing?
Andrei: What else is there to do? I guess we’ll have to spend the rest of the holiday season here.
Bachkov: Well, it’s not up to me to decide who or what time is spent here, but I’m sure they won’t release you until the festival ends and its foreign guests leave the country.
Dandelion, an old man about 80, addressing Bachkov: Anatoli Sergeevich, could you please give me the keys. I want to weed this flowerbed with dahlias, time permitting.
Andrei: Time is no problem here.
Dandelion looks peevishly at Andrei, without saying anything.
Bachkov: Here they are, Evgeniy Pavlovich. Watch out for the sun: they say it will be hot today.
Andrei: How did this Dandelion come to be here?
Bachkov, taking a seat: His sisters handed him over. He has two sisters in Moscow, and he lived with them…
Andrei: Is he single?
Bachkov: He is.
Andrei: Well, what’s the story?
Bachkov: The story is the usual one: either he got on their nerves, or their children wanted more living space…
Andrei: Well, he seems mentally quite sound.
Bachkov: You’d better ask Miroshkin, the late head of the hospital.
Andrei: Which Miroshkin? Do you mean Professor Miroshkin?
Bachkov: Yes, professor Miroshkin, our former head of the hospital. Did you know him?
Andrei: I surely did. He was my forensic expert, diagnosed me as schizophrenic and certified me as non compos mentis, in short, signed and sealed everything the KGB used to frame me.
Bachkov: Well, it was either him or somebody else: you wouldn’t have avoided it anyway.
Andrei: Maybe. I’ll only say that prior to Miroshkin they took me to Serbskiy Institute and asked their academician to diagnose and certify me. And he refused…
So, you say the old bastard has kicked the bucket?