Chapter 18
FOREST GYMNASIA

“Please, tell me, Anastasia, was your upbringing exactly the way you are describing everything now?”

She answered only after a short pause evidently trying to recall her childhood.

“You know, to tell the truth, I almost completely don't remember my daddy and mummy. I was brought up by my grandfather and great-grandfather approximately the way I've just described to you.

 

"The point is that somehow I was feeling nature and the animal world surrounding me very well. Maybe I was not realizing all its mechanisms up to the end but it is not important when one feels it. Granddaddy and great-granddaddy used to visit me from time to time and asked questions and asked me to answer them. It is a rule with us that the elders treat babies and little children as a divine being and through a child's answers they are checking their own purity”.

I asked Anastasia to recollect any specific question she was asked and the answers she gave to it.

She smiled and told me this story:

“Once I was playing with a snake, the next moment I turned around and saw them standing watching me and smiling. I was very happy to see them because it was usually fun to spend time with them. Only they could ask me questions and, moreover, their hearts were beating at the same rhythm as mine and the animals' heartbeats were absolutely different.

 

I ran up to them, great-granddaddy bowed to me and granddaddy took me on his lap. I was listening to the beating of his heart and while doing it I was running my fingers over of his beard examining it. We were silent for a while. Everyone was thinking to himself and I felt so good.

 

Then my granddaddy asked me a question:

"Now, tell me, Anastasia, why does my hair grow here?" He pointed to his head and beard.

 

"But why don't they grow here?", pointing to his forehead and nose.

I touched his forehead, then his nose but no answer came to my mind. I could not speak hastily. It was necessary for me to comprehend the subject by myself.

 

When they came the next time granddad started again:

"Well, you see, the same problem is bothering me. I am still thinking about it. Why do I have hair growing right here and not here?"

Then again he pointed to his forehead and nose.

My granddaddy was looking at me very intently and seriously. Then I thought, that evidently it was really the most serious problem for him and asked him in return:

"Well, granddaddy, do you really want so much hair to grow all over you including your forehead and nose?"

My great-granddaddy became very thoughtful and granddaddy answered:

"No, I don't want it to"

 

"There you are, that's why they don't grow, because you just don't want them to".

Then he asked thoughtfully stroking his beard as if he was asking himself:

"All right, do you think that right here they grow just because I like it?"

Then I confirmed saying:

"Of course, grandpa, you and me and the one who has invented you".

At that very moment great grandpa became very excited and asked:

"Can you tell me who? Who has invented him?"

 

"The one who has thought of everything", I answered.

 

"All right, and where is he, can you show him to me?", asked my grandpa bowing before me.

I could not answer right away at that moment but the question stayed inside me and I started thinking about it since that time.

“Did you find the answer later?”, I asked her.

I answered it in about a year and then received new questions. You see, they did not ask me a new question before I gave them the answer to the previous one.

 

Believe me, I was having a very hard time as it was bothering me”.

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