German writer Michael Ende is known to the domestic reader mainly as the author of "". But he has other kind and wise fairy tales that are worthy of attention. One of them is a fairy tale Momo».
The main character of the story is a little girl named Momo. She lives alone in a small town, no one has ever seen her parents, no one knows who she is or where she came from. The inhabitants of the town love Momo because she is endowed with a rare gift: the ability to listen to others. Talking with Momo, a timid person becomes bold, a shy person becomes self-confident, an unfortunate person forgets about his sorrows. That's why Momo has many friends.
But one day the peace of the city is broken. They come to him Gray gentlemen- time thieves. They act covertly and cautiously, deceiving people and luring them into their networks. Posing as employees Savings Banks of Time, they offer people to open an account to save time. In fact, they simply steal this time from people, not at all intending to return it back, especially with interest.
Gradually, more and more people become obsessed with the idea of saving time. They try to finish any business quickly, and they don’t have time for simple human joys at all. Her friends stop coming to Momo - they now consider conversations a waste of time. Then she decides to go looking for them. Now only Momo can save people from the Gray Lords and return to them Lost time. Will it be possible to do it?
Like any good children's book, Momo will be interesting. not only for children but also for adults. The issues raised by the author are relevant even now, because in modern hectic life we try to do everything, but in the end we don’t have time for really important things: for talking with friends, for unhurried walks, and finally for ourselves.
This is a book about how a child can be no less wise than an adult, because it's not about age. The fact that wonderful abilities lie on the surface, and no diplomas and merits can replace such a seemingly simple skill - listen and hear the other person.
And even though in the course of the story it may seem to the reader that everything is hopeless, and the Gray gentlemen will inevitably win, the story "Momo", like all fairy tales, will certainly end well. After all, "Momo", like all the works of Michael Ende, is filled with endless love for people. People who are by nature imperfect, who can make mistakes. But true love often the opposite.
If you love " Never ending story”, be sure to take the time and read “Momo”: you will like it. And if you have not read any of the works of Michael Ende, it's time to get acquainted with them: the world of fairy tales is always open for children and adults, you just need to take a step into it.
Quotes from the book
“There is one important, but very everyday secret in the world. All people are involved in it, everyone knows it; but only a few think about it. Many simply take note of it, not a bit surprised by it. This secret is time.
Calendars and clocks have been created to measure time, but they are of little use, because everyone knows that one hour can seem like an eternity and at the same time flash like an instant - depending on what is experienced during this hour.
After all, time is life. And life lives in the heart
“No one seemed to notice that by saving time, he was actually saving something quite different. No one wanted to admit that his life was getting poorer, more monotonous and colder.
Only the children felt this clearly, because no one had more time for children.
But time is life. And life lives in the heart.
And the more people saved, the poorer they became.”
Michael Ende
In the darkness, light is seen, like a miracle.
I see a light, but I don't know from where.
Now he is far away, then as if - right here ...
I don't know the name of that light.
Only - whoever you are, star, -
You, as before, always shine for me!
Irish children's song
Part one. MOMO AND HER FRIENDS
Chapter first. BIG CITY AND LITTLE GIRL
In ancient, ancient times, when people still spoke languages that are now completely forgotten, large and beautiful cities already existed in warm countries. There rose the palaces of kings and emperors; wide streets stretched from end to end; narrow lanes and alleyways meandered; there were magnificent temples with gold and marble statues gods; noisy colorful bazaars, where they offered goods from all over the world; there were wide squares where people discussed the news, made or simply listened to speeches. But above all, these cities were famous for their theaters.
These theaters were similar to the current circus, only built entirely of stone. Rows for spectators were arranged in steps one above the other, as in a huge funnel. And if you look from above, then some of these buildings were round, others formed an oval or half a circle. They called them amphitheatres.
Some of them were huge, like a football stadium, others could hold no more than two hundred spectators. Some were luxurious, with columns and statues, others were modest, without any decorations. The amphitheaters had no roofs; all performances were given under open sky. However, in richer theaters, gold-woven carpets were stretched over the rows to protect the audience from the heat of the sun or sudden rain. In poorer theatres, reed or straw mats served the same purpose. In a word, there were theaters for the rich and theaters for the poor. Everyone attended them, because everyone was passionate listeners and spectators.
And when people, with bated breath, followed the funny or sad events that took place on the stage, it seemed to them that this only imagined life in some mysterious way seemed more truthful, true and much more interesting than their own everyday life. And they loved to listen to this other reality.
Millennia have passed since then. Cities disappeared, palaces and temples collapsed. Wind and rain, heat and cold, polished and weathered the stones, big theaters ruins remain. In the old, cracked walls, now only the cicadas sing their monotonous song, similar to the breath of the sleeping earth.
But some of these ancient cities have survived to this day. Of course, their lives have changed. People travel in cars and trains, they have telephones and electricity. But, sometimes among the new buildings you can still see ancient columns, an arch, a piece of a fortress wall or an amphitheater of those distant days.
This story happened in one of those cities.
On the southern edge big city, where the fields begin, and the houses and buildings are getting poorer, the ruins of a small amphitheater hid in the pine forest. Even in ancient times it did not seem luxurious, it was a theater for the poor. And in our days. that is, in those days when this story with Momo began, almost no one remembered the ruins. Only connoisseurs of antiquity knew about this theater, but it was of no interest to them either, because there was nothing to study there. Sometimes two or three tourists wandered in here, climbed the stone steps overgrown with grass, talked to each other, clicked cameras and left. Silence returned to the stone crater, the cicadas began the next stanza of their endless song, exactly the same as the previous ones.
Most often there were nearby residents who had known this place for a long time. They left their goats to graze here, and the children played ball in the round area in the middle of the amphitheatre. Sometimes couples in love met here in the evenings.
Once there was a rumor that someone lives in the ruins. They said it was a child, a little girl, but no one really knew anything. Her name was Momo, I think.
Momo looked a little strange. It had a frightening effect on people who valued neatness and cleanliness. She was small and thin, and it was difficult to guess how old she was - eight or twelve. She had wild, blue-black curls, which, obviously, neither comb nor scissors had ever touched, large, surprisingly beautiful eyes, also black, and the same color of her feet, because she always ran barefoot. In winter, she occasionally wore boots, but they were too big for her, and besides, they were different. After all, Momo either found her things somewhere, or received them as a gift. Her long, ankle-length skirt was made from colored pieces. On top, Momo wore an oversized old man's jacket, too large for her, the sleeves of which she always rolled up. Momo did not want to cut them off, she thought that she would grow up soon and who knows if she would ever again come across such a wonderful jacket with so many pockets.
"Momo" - touching and very instructive tale German children's writer Michael Ende. It was published in 1973 with the subtitle " Strange story about the thieves of time and the child who returned time to people. Subsequently, "Momo" was awarded the German Children's Literature Prize and translated into 30 languages.
Before becoming a storyteller, Michael Ende looked for himself in the field of playwright and novelist. However, his works did not find a response from the public. Once, while walking around Palermo, Ende witnessed an unusual action - a man enthusiastically told a story. A crowd of citizens gathered around him. They all listened with bated breath. When asked by Ende what kind of story this was, the speaker replied that many years ago he first got acquainted with the book by Alexandre Dumas. The work delighted him so much that he learned the text by heart, and eventually became a professional storyteller.
After this meeting on the streets of Palermo, Michael Ende realized that you need to write in such a way that your works will be told on the streets in a hundred years. He did away with drama, but did not want to part with writing. “Something is wrong here,” Ende thought, “There must be some other way, I just don’t see it.” Right way found quite by accident.
A friend of Michael Ende suggested that he write a short children's story for an illustrated book that he was publishing. To unwind a little, Ende accepted the offer and began to compose. Thus, the famous Jim Button was born. The story about him was published in 1960, at that time Michael Ende was 31 years old.
Young readers and their parents liked Ende's fantasy so much that the book was literally swept away from store shelves. A year later, the author of Button Jim was already awarded two honorary awards - the Berlin literary prize for the younger generation and the German Book Prize for Children. Inspired by Ende, he sat down to continue. Now he was firmly convinced that his vocation was children's literature.
"Momo" - a fairy tale for adults
Following the successful Jim Button in the fabulous collection of Michael Ende, another character appeared - a tramp girl Momo with a turtle under her arm. The fairy tale was published in 1973. Later it was filmed several times. So, in 1986, Germany released feature film Momo directed by Johannes Schaaf.
"Momo" is not just a children's fairy tale, it, like Ende's other works, is deep philosophical work, dressed in a lightweight form literary fairy tale.
chronic employment
The theme of time and its depreciation as a result of total globalization is at the center of the problematics of Momo. Trying to save every second modern man actually steals time from own life. Stopping and admiring the beauty of a blossoming flower or the sunset over the roofs of houses is an unaffordable luxury for an ever-hurrying city dweller. And that is exactly what life is.
Michael Ende admitted that "Momo" was written primarily for adults, children already know everything that is written there. But the book is addressed to children, because in this way it will definitely fall into the hands of their parents.
Ende's cunning plan worked - the readership of the book has no boundaries. Even in a hundred years, it will be relevant, and it will be told on the streets, if by that time, of course, we have not forgotten how to just talk like that. Let's remember the plot of this amazing story about stolen time.
Once on earth there were beautiful cities with elegant doors, wide streets and cozy lanes, colorful bazaars, majestic temples and amphitheaters. Now these cities do not exist, only ruins remind of them. In one of these dilapidated ancient amphitheatres, which is occasionally visited by inquisitive tourists, a little girl named Momo settled.
No one knew whose she was, where she came from or how old she was. According to Momo, she is one hundred and two years old and has no one in the world but herself. True, you can't give Momo more than twelve. She is very small and thin, she has blue-black curly hair, the same dark huge eyes and no less black legs, because Momo always runs barefoot. Only for the winter the girl puts on shoes that are disproportionately large for her thin legs. Momo's skirt is made from multi-colored patches, and the jacket is no less long than the skirt. Momo thought about cutting off his sleeves, but then she decided that with time she would grow up, and she might not find such a wonderful jacket.
Once upon a time, Momo was in an orphanage. She does not like to remember this period of her life. She and many other unfortunate children were severely beaten, scolded and forced to do what they absolutely did not want. One day, Momo climbed over the fence and escaped. Since then, she has been living in a room under the stage of the ancient amphitheater.
Families who lived in the neighborhood found out about the appearance of a homeless girl. They helped Momo settle into a new home. The bricklayer laid out the stove and made a chimney, the carpenter cut out the chairs and the table, someone brought a wrought-iron bed, someone brought bedspreads and a mattress, the painter painted flowers on the wall, and the abandoned closet under the stage turned into a cozy room where Momo now lived.
Her house was always full of guests. different ages and different professions. If someone was in trouble, the locals always said, "Go visit Momo." What was so special about this homeless little girl? Yes, nothing special ... She just knew how to listen. She did this in such a way that the disappointed found hope, the unsure - confidence in own forces, the oppressed raised above their heads, and the abandoned understood that they were not alone.
One day, in the city where Momo and her friends lived, Gray gentlemen appeared. In fact, their organization had existed for a long time, they acted slowly, carefully and imperceptibly, entangling people and establishing themselves in the life of the city. the main objective Gray gentlemen - take possession human time.
Time is the biggest secret and the most valuable treasure that everyone has, but knows almost nothing about it. People have fixed the time in calendars and watches, but the present time lives in the heart. It is life.
The insidious plan of the Gray Masters was based on depriving people of the present time. For example, agent X with code number 384-b comes to an ordinary hairdresser, Mr. Fouquet, and invites him to make a contribution to the Savings Bank of Time. Having carried out intricate mathematical calculations, the X agent proves that by making daily deposits at interest, you can multiply precious time tenfold. To do this, you just need to learn how to use it rationally.
How much does Mr. Fouquet spend on serving each client? Half an hour? A visit can be shortened to 15 minutes by eliminating unnecessary conversations with visitors. How long does Monsieur Fouquet talk to the old mother? whole hour?! But she is paralyzed and practically does not understand him. The mother can be taken to a cheap nursing home, thereby winning precious 60 minutes. The green parrot, which Fouquet spends an average of 30 minutes a day caring for, should also be disposed of. Gatherings with friends in a cafe, going to the cinema, visiting Fraulein Daria, thinking near the window - eliminate all this as unnecessary!
Soon, the Savings Bank of Time had many investors. They dressed better, lived richer, looked more respectable than those who lived in the part of the city near the amphitheater. Investors settled in the same type of multi-storey box houses, were constantly in a hurry somewhere, never smiled, and most of all were afraid of silence, because in silence it became obvious that the time saved was rushing at an unimaginable speed. Monotonous days add up to weeks, months, years. They can't be stopped. Don't even remember them. It's like they don't exist at all.
None of the Savings Bank depositors know about little Momo, who lives in a room under the stage of the amphitheater. But she knows about them and wants to help them.
To save the city from the Gray masters, Momo goes to the man who knows the time - this is the Master of Time, he is also the Master of the Choir, he is also the Secundus Minutus of the Hora. The Magister lives in the Nowhere House. For a long time he watched little Momo, having learned that the Gray gentlemen want to get rid of the girl, Master Hora sent the tortoise-fortune teller Cassiopeia after her. It was she who brought Momo to the magical abode of the Master.
The mysterious society of "gray gentlemen" forces people to save time. In reality, they are defrauding them of saved hours and minutes. After all, time is life, and the more a person saves it, the poorer, fussier and colder his existence becomes, the more he moves away from himself. And children feel the growing alienation and heartlessness most sharply. But their protest goes unheeded. And when the trouble reaches the limit and the world seems to already completely belong to the "gray gentlemen", Master Hora, the mysterious "Lord of Time", with a heavy heart decides to intervene. But for this he needs help. Momo, a little girl with jet-black curly hair, takes on an entire army of Time Bank agents alone. "Michael Ende," writes Gustav René Hocke in the Welt magazine, "managed to create fairy tale for children and adults, which comes close to scientific prose. However, with regard to language, composition, pictures and concepts, the author has achieved supreme poetry profound simplicity.
Michael Ende
Momo
A little introduction from the translator
My whole life until the age of 53 was spent in Russia, and I belong to a little-known and a little strange nationality - Russian Germans. These are not German Germans, occupying a powerful niche in the human community, but that arose in the process of long-term adaptation - first in Tsarskaya, then Soviet Russia- part of the German people, ousted from Germany after the seven-year war.
It is amazing that my ancestors for two and a half centuries were not assimilated by the mighty Russian mentality and Russian culture to the extent that one might expect. Their religious-sectarian upbringing and peasant origin formed the strongest immunity against such dissolution. And this despite all the social upheavals that befell the Russian state in the ill-fated 20th century - especially during the war against Nazi Germany when Russian Germans were naturally but unfairly identified with the German fascists, so hated in the USSR.
My childhood and adolescence just fell on that period of history. But it was precisely after the second abolition of "serfdom" in 1955 (the release of collective farmers from registration to villages with the issuance of passports to them and the liquidation of the special commandant's office for Russian Germans) and the emergence of relative freedom, assimilation, quite voluntary, began to quickly change the mentality of Russian Germans in the direction of Russian culture and Russian way of life.
From childhood I was drawn to learning, which did not at all correspond to the general mood of the conservative Russian German village, and at the age of 15 I escaped from the religious and peasant environment and plunged into civilization, settling in a hostel and enrolling in a technical school in the large Siberian city of Omsk (1952).
At that time I read a lot and, given the then orientation of literature and means mass media, quickly moved away from religion, which in our home bore the character of tedious and painful moralizing.
In general, if we discard Negative consequences of that "civilized" life, grinding millions of destinies of village boys and girls who came to the city, one thing is certain: the German part of this great urban migration quickly "Russified", losing its language and centuries-old family traditions.
I do not regret at all that the great, not rationalistic, to a certain extent mystified Russian culture has become my culture, my spiritual environment. I can’t and don’t want to compare it with German, which is alien to me, let me not judge her.
I stumbled upon M. Ende's book "Momo" quite by accident after moving with my family to Germany. A chapter from it was included in the study guide German language and the German way of life for the settlers, and immediately made me strong impression its humanistic orientation and absolute rejection by the author of the rationalistic, unspiritual construction of life in a capitalist society.
With reason, you well understand that an alternative to the life of today's West, which requires maximum realism, can be calm spiritual communication and contemplative peace, which require much less material consumption. What is closer to the ideal is a philosophical question. But that is another topic for another time. For now, I will only note that the ideas of Jesus the Nazarene at one time looked much more absurd and impossible. And today they are the core of life for most of humanity. One can, of course, object that even in Christian Europe life is still far from the proclaimed norms. Nevertheless, Christianity is a strong and unshakable foundation, and the building on it will continue to be built and improved in accordance with the changing life.
When reading "Momo" I was constantly haunted by the feeling that this was a story from the "silver" period of Russian literature XIX century, not a modern bestseller.
Then I took up entrepreneurship for a long time, not spending all my time on it very successfully, but the idea that the book needed to be brought to the Russian reader did not leave me. This need is especially acute in last years when the idea of God-seeking took possession of my mind.
And now about the book and its heroine - the little girl Momo, who had the moral strength and courage to resist the gray, all-absorbing power of Evil.
She appears in the vicinity of a big city, where people live slowly, rejoice and grieve, quarrel and make peace, but most importantly, they communicate with each other, and cannot live without it. They are not rich, although they are not lazy at all. They have enough time for everything, and it never occurs to anyone to save it.
Momo settles in an ancient amphitheater. No one knows where she comes from or what she wants. She doesn't seem to know it herself.
Soon it turns out that Molyu has a magical and rare gift to listen to people so that they become smarter and better, forget all the petty and absurd things that poison their lives.
But children especially love her, who, with her, become extraordinary dreamers and invent fascinating games.
Gradually, however, an evil force imperceptibly, invisibly and inaudibly intervenes in the lives of these people in the form of gray gentlemen who feed on human time. For their countless horde, a lot of it is required, and the gray gentlemen are talented and stubbornly creating an entire industry of stealing time from people. They must convince every person that it is necessary to rationalize one's life as much as possible, not to waste it on such unpromising matters as communicating with friends, relatives, children, and even more so on "useless" old people and the disabled. Labor cannot serve as a source of joy, everything must be subordinated to a single goal - in as soon as possible produce the maximum product.
And now the former quiet city is turning into a huge industrial center, where everyone is in a terrible hurry, not noticing each other. Time is saved on everything, and it should become more and more, but, on the contrary, it is more and more lacking. Some kind of convulsive, extremely rationalized way of life is taking shape, in which every lost moment is a crime.
Where does the "saved time" go? It is quietly stolen by the gray gentlemen, putting it in their huge bank vaults.
Who are they - gray gentlemen? These are demons that incline people to evil in the name of a tempting goal. Tempting them with the charms of life, which can only be achieved with great effort by saving every second, the gray gentlemen, in fact, force people to sacrifice their entire meaningful life. This chain is false, it does not exist at all, but it beckons everyone until death.
And Momo has a lot of time, and she generously gives it to people. She is rich not in the time that can be materialized, but in the time she gives to others. Her time is spiritual wealth.
Naturally, Momo becomes for the gray gentlemen the embodiment of a worldview that is dangerous for them, hindering their plans for a total reorganization of the world. To remove this obstacle, they give the girl expensive mechanical toys, clothes and other things. All this should shock Momo and make her give up any further attempts to embarrass people. To do this, she herself needs to be drawn into a crazy race to save time.
When the gray gentlemen fail, they throw all their strength into eliminating the resistance they do not understand. In the process of this struggle, they learn that Momo can lead them to the place where people are given life time, which everyone must dispose of with dignity. To take possession of the primary source of all human time - rationalistic demons could not even imagine such luck!
There is a direct analogy with the Christian postulate here: each person is given a Soul - a particle of God, and he is also given the right to choose how to dispose of it. Earthly temptations and pride lead a person away from God, from spiritual union with Him, and he voluntarily impoverishes himself, his spiritual life.
The quintessence of the spiritual and religious content of the book is set out in chapter 12. Momo ends up in the place where the time of all people comes from. Here it is quite obviously identified with the human soul. Time is the soul given by God to man in his heart, and Master Hora distributes it. He is obliged to endow each person with the time that is intended for him.
This translation is the first experience of this kind in my practice.
My whole life until the age of 53 was spent in Russia, and I belong to a little-known and a little strange nationality - Russian Germans. These are not German Germans occupying a powerful niche in the human community, but a part of the German people that arose in the process of long-term adaptation - first in Tsarist, then Soviet Russia, ousted from Germany after the seven-year war.
It is amazing that my ancestors for two and a half centuries were not assimilated by the mighty Russian mentality and Russian culture to the extent that one might expect. Their religious-sectarian upbringing and peasant origin formed the strongest immunity against such dissolution. And this despite all the social upheavals that befell the Russian state in the ill-fated 20th century - especially during the war with Nazi Germany, when Russian Germans were naturally but unfairly identified with the German fascists, so hated in the USSR.
My childhood and adolescence just fell on that period of history. But it was precisely after the second abolition of "serfdom" in 1955 (the release of collective farmers from registration to villages with the issuance of passports to them and the liquidation of the special commandant's office for Russian Germans) and the emergence of relative freedom, assimilation, quite voluntary, began to quickly change the mentality of Russian Germans towards Russian culture and Russian way of life.
From childhood I was drawn to learning, which did not at all correspond to the general mood of the conservative Russian German village, and at the age of 15 I escaped from the religious and peasant environment and plunged into civilization, settling in a hostel and enrolling in a technical school in the large Siberian city of Omsk (1952).
At that time I read a lot and, given the current trend of literature and the media, quickly moved away from religion, which in our home had the character of tedious and painful moralizing.
In general, if we discard the negative consequences of that “civilized” life that grinded up millions of destinies of village boys and girls who came to the city, one thing is certain: the German part of this great urban migration quickly “Russified”, losing its language and centuries-old family traditions.
I do not regret at all that the great, not rationalistic, to a certain extent mystified Russian culture has become my culture, my spiritual environment. I can’t and don’t want to compare it with German, which is alien to me, let me not judge her.
I stumbled upon M. Ende's book "Momo" quite by accident after moving with my family to Germany. A chapter from it was included in a manual for the study of the German language and the German way of life for immigrants and immediately made a strong impression on me with its humanistic orientation and the author's absolute rejection of the rationalistic, unspiritual construction of life in a capitalist society.
With reason, you well understand that an alternative to the life of today's West, which requires maximum realism, can be calm spiritual communication and contemplative peace, which require much less material consumption. What is closer to the ideal is a philosophical question. But that is another topic for another time. For now, I will only note that the ideas of Jesus the Nazarene at one time looked much more absurd and impossible. And today they are the core of life for most of humanity. One can, of course, object that even in Christian Europe life is still far from the proclaimed norms. Nevertheless, Christianity is a strong and unshakable foundation, and the building on it will continue to be built and improved in accordance with the changing life.
While reading "Momo" I was constantly haunted by the feeling that this is a narrative from the "silver" period of Russian literature of the 19th century, and not a modern bestseller.
Then I took up entrepreneurship for a long time, not spending all my time on it very successfully, but the idea that the book needed to be brought to the Russian reader did not leave me. This need has become especially acute in recent years, when the idea of God-seeking took possession of my consciousness.
And now about the book and its heroine - the little girl Momo, who had the moral strength and courage to resist the gray, all-absorbing power of Evil.
She appears in the vicinity of a big city, where people live slowly, rejoice and grieve, quarrel and make peace, but most importantly, they communicate with each other, and cannot live without it. They are not rich, although they are not lazy at all. They have enough time for everything, and it never occurs to anyone to save it.
Momo settles in an ancient amphitheater. No one knows where she comes from or what she wants. She doesn't seem to know it herself.
Soon it turns out that Molyu has a magical and rare gift to listen to people so that they become smarter and better, forget all the petty and absurd things that poison their lives.
But children especially love her, who, with her, become extraordinary dreamers and invent fascinating games.
Gradually, however, an evil force imperceptibly, invisibly and inaudibly intervenes in the lives of these people in the form of gray gentlemen who feed on human time. For their countless horde, a lot of it is required, and the gray gentlemen are talented and stubbornly creating an entire industry of stealing time from people. They must convince every person that it is necessary to rationalize one's life as much as possible, not to waste on such unpromising matters as communicating with friends, relatives, children, and even more so on “useless” old people and the disabled. Labor cannot serve as a source of joy, everything must be subordinated to a single goal - to produce the maximum product in the shortest possible time.
And now the former quiet city is turning into a huge industrial center, where everyone is in a terrible hurry, not noticing each other. Time is saved on everything, and it should become more and more, but, on the contrary, it is more and more lacking. Some kind of convulsive, extremely rationalized way of life is taking shape, in which every lost moment is a crime.
Where does the "saved time" go? It is quietly stolen by the gray gentlemen, putting it in their huge bank vaults.
Who are they - gray gentlemen? These are demons that incline people to evil in the name of a tempting goal. Tempting them with the charms of life, which can only be achieved with great effort by saving every second, the gray gentlemen, in fact, force people to sacrifice their entire meaningful life. This chain is false, it does not exist at all, but it beckons everyone until death.
And Momo has a lot of time, and she generously gives it to people. She is rich not in the time that can be materialized, but in the time she gives to others. Her time is spiritual wealth.
Naturally, Momo becomes for the gray gentlemen the embodiment of a worldview that is dangerous for them, hindering their plans for a total reorganization of the world. To remove this obstacle, they give the girl expensive mechanical toys, clothes and other things. All this should shock Momo and make her give up any further attempts to embarrass people. To do this, she herself needs to be drawn into a crazy race to save time.
When the gray gentlemen fail, they throw all their strength into eliminating the resistance they do not understand. In the process of this struggle, they learn that Momo can lead them to the place where people are given life time, which everyone must dispose of with dignity. To take possession of the primary source of all human time - rationalistic demons could not even imagine such luck!
There is a direct analogy with the Christian postulate here: each person is given a Soul - a particle of God, and he is also given the right to choose how to dispose of it. Earthly temptations and pride lead a person away from God, from spiritual union with Him, and he voluntarily impoverishes himself, his spiritual life.
