Тайната

Among the great Russian writers, sufferers and righteous, martyrs and saints, Turgenev seems to be the most fortunate, the most prosperous. Born under a lucky star, anointed by good fortune, it seems to you that he is not the son of this long-suffering, blood- and sweat-soaked Russian land, but the pampered child of generous and abundant France, which has for centuries cared for its spiritual talents, which for centuries has accumulated spiritual and material goods. First of all, this prosperity imposes itself in its crude life sense. Both Pushkin and Lermontov are representatives of the "golden youth", and they are chicks in noble nests", and they are "rocked in gentle cradles", but with how many thorns was their path covered from the first wreaths of glory to the bullets of the framed murderers. And Gogol crossed the threshold of recognition with the major-solemn chords of a triumphal march, but what a burdensome, hopeless requiem are the last days of his life. And Tolstoy grew up under the care of teachers and governesses, and he plucked flowers from the garden of life, and he adorned himself with the laurels of world fame, and he strove for harmony and balance in his life. But at the cost of so much self-torture, wandering, and convulsions. What can we say about Dostoevsky, who knew the anonymous greatness of the hero, of the fighter against official power, of the knight of social conscience, but again at the cost of a death sentence, of trembling before the scaffold, of nearly ten years of exile. What can we say about Chekhov, who was afflicted with consumption for life? What can we say about the cohorts of younger, perhaps no less gifted and far less celebrated contemporaries, who were cut down in an insultingly early manner by the harsh living conditions?