Repentance Comments

Nino Barateli: Esteemed Varlam, will you sing again? Sing something else, please. Don't refuse, please, dear Varlam!

Varlam Aravidze: With great pleasure. Tired with all these, for restful death I cry: as, to behold desert a beggar born, and needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, and purest faith unhappily forsworn, and gilded honour shamefully misplaced, and maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, and right perfection wrongfully disgraced, and strength by limping sway disabled, and art made tongue-tied by authority, and folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, and simple truth miscall'd simplicity, and captive good attending captain ill. William Shakespeare. Sonnet 66. A regimen is a regimen.

Mikheil Koresheli: I understand, but this is not an argument for the letter's authors.

Varlam Aravidze: Maybe the artist's talent isn't a strong argument for them either? They have in mind his stand.

Mikheil Koresheli: What are you talking about? Talent is kindness, and that's already a stand!

Varlam Aravidze: I understand that Sandro Barateli is your friend and pupil.By the way, do you know that he's my relative?

Mikheil Koresheli: No... I didn't know that.

Varlam Aravidze: Even a close relative. Write a protest, esteemed Mikhail. Barateli is arrested, but he's not convicted. I was just executing the people's will, masses stand behind that letter. And each word coming from the masses is the holy of holies for me. Write a protest, esteemed Mikhail.

Mikheil Koresheli: To write a protest?

Varlam Aravidze: Yes, I have nothing against it.

Mikheil Koresheli: Wait, wait... What do you mean, "nothing against it"? What can you possibly have against the truth?

Varlam Aravidze: The truth? Nothing.

Mikheil Koresheli: Well, I'll write it!

Varlam Aravidze: Go ahead, write it. But take that letter into account, too.

Mikheil Koresheli: What does that letter, that filth have to do with it? That provocation?

Varlam Aravidze: Not a provocation, but a document registered in thousands of places.

Mikheil Koresheli: I don't care where it's registered.

Varlam Aravidze: You're wrong, esteemed Mikhail. It's my duty to take the position of the majority, for the majority decides.

Mikheil Koresheli: What majority? What are you talking about? One man of reason outweighs a thousand idiots.

Varlam Aravidze: I understand that you're talking about me.

Mikheil Koresheli: Stand up for him. Defending one person is not such a big deal.

Varlam Aravidze: But remember, as the letter's authors see it, you're protecting the enemy. Yes, your friend and my relative is our enemy now. And we are his victims.

Mikheil Koresheli: Who is the enemy? Who is the enemy?