An old man worked at Tiflis railway station*. He used to clean steam boilers at night, but age no longer allowed him to do such heavy work. So the stationmaster gave him an easier task.
Every morning and every evening, the old man released steam into the station whistle by pulling a rope. In the morning, the whistle woke the railway workers and station staff. But the station stood on a hill, so the whistle could be heard almost throughout the city.
The townspeople, awakened early in the morning, cursed the old man. At first, he had no idea about this.
During the very first week of his new work, the old man noticed something strange. After every whistle, he felt unwell for an hour or two. Gradually, this developed into inexplicable anxiety — a distinct “instinctive uneasiness.” The old man even lost his appetite. He tried to understand the cause of his condition, but could not find it for almost two years.
One morning, while hurrying to work, the old man met an acquaintance, a barber-surgeon. The man worked for the city administration and caught stray dogs. He was about to throw a net over another dog when the bells rang. They rang from a nearby church, calling people to morning prayer. The dog became frightened and ran away. The furious dogcatcher cursed:
“Damn it! What a time to ring!”
How the Old Man Found the Cause of His Anxiety
And then it struck the old man. His own whistle probably provoked the same curses from the awakened townspeople every morning. But the old man could not give up this work. The whistle was needed by the railway workers and station staff. By helping some people, he angered others. And, as the old man decided, “vibrations of every kind of malice” came toward him from those he had awakened.
He then began cursing everyone disturbed by his duty before sounding each whistle. First, the old man turned in every direction and uttered every curse he knew. Only after that did he pull the rope.
From then on, the anxiety — that same “instinctive uneasiness” — never returned. And his appetite came back.
Aggression and Anxiety: A Psychodynamic Interpretation
Psychodynamically, this story can be read as a story about unacknowledged aggression, guilt, and restored subjectivity — one’s own capacity to act.
The old man helps some people and irritates others. A conflict arises within him: “I am doing necessary work,” and, at the same time, “people suffer and become angry because of me.” This conflict may also contain guilt.
The old man does not hear the curses directly, but unconsciously senses his role in his relationship with the townspeople. For them, he is both a useful worker and an “annoying” figure who forcibly tears them from sleep.
While what is happening remains unconscious, the tension is experienced through the body — as illness, loss of appetite, and causeless anxiety.
Aggression and Magical Protection
Gurdjieff describes the irritation directed at the old man as “vibrations of every kind of malice.” In psychodynamic terms, we could say that the old man becomes a container for other people’s aggression, without understanding its source or having any way to respond.
By cursing the townspeople first, the old man stops being a passive target of their malice and regains the ability to respond. His own irritation had previously failed to fit his image of himself as a dutiful man and could manifest through anxiety and bodily symptoms. Now it receives direct expression. At the same time, the cursing becomes a protective ritual: the old man imagines that his curse, delivered in advance, neutralizes the “vibrations of malice,” makes the situation more manageable, and reduces his anxiety.
Within the Gurdjieff tradition, the old man’s actions can be understood as self-protection. He awakens others to a spiritual and meaningful life and inevitably encounters their resistance.
Working Through the Conflict
But the psychic working-through of the conflict can go further. The old man cannot hold both sides of the situation in mind at once: his work is necessary, but it genuinely causes other people discomfort. He resolves the conflict magically by sending the evil back to its presumed source in advance. The source of malice remains outside, while his own aggression is experienced only as a forced response.
One possible meaning of Gurdjieff’s story can be formulated as follows: when a person fails to recognize aggression directed at them and their own response to it, the resulting tension may be experienced as inexplicable anxiety and bodily distress. Claiming the right to feel anger and respond restores an active position and reduces helplessness.
A more mature working-through would require tolerating the situation’s full ambivalence: recognizing the usefulness of one’s work, the discomfort it causes, other people’s anger, and one’s own aggression — without turning another person into the source of absolute evil.
* A retelling of an episode from “The Arousing of Thought,” the first chapter of G. I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.