2. A Victim of the Times
3. The fellow who had thrown the regimental card pushed his way toward the door with his head down. Everyone dodged to the sides like the plague and let him through. As soon as he stepped out, the door slammed shut with a yelp.
Pankratov grabbed the thrown regimental card and stretched it over the flame of a small oil lamp.
The card burned and curled up into a small black cylinder.
Highlight #1 The waves lapped at his feet against the scattered piles of rocks, and a dry sea breeze from distant Turkey blew against his face. The harbor's coast was irregularly bowed, a breakwater of steel and concrete blocking the waves. Winding, undulating mountains stretched down to the waterfront with an abrupt break. On the outskirts of the city blocks of white huts line the peaks, stretching far into the distance.
The old suburban park was silent. Yellowed maple leaves swept down by the fall winds fell slowly on paths that had been left uncleared and overgrown for a long time.
An old Persian coachman had dragged Paul here from the city. As he helped the eccentric passenger out, he couldn't help but ask, "Why have you come here? There are no girls here, there is no theater, there are only bearded wolves wandering around ...... What are you doing here? I really don't understand! Mr. Comrade, it's better to go back in my car!"
Kochakin paid for the car, and the old man left.
The park was empty and silent. Paul found a bench on the beach and sat down, turning his face to the sun, which was no longer so hot.
He had come to this secluded spot by car in order to consider how to organize his future life. It was time to take stock and make decisions.
With his arrival again, the conflict in the Chucham household intensified to the breaking point. When the old man heard that he had come again, he became furious and made a lot of noise and nonsense in the house. Naturally, it was Paul who led the revolt. The old man did not expect the strong resistance of his wife and two daughters, so from the day of Paul's second arrival, the family lived separately, hostile to each other, hate each other. The aisle leading to the old couple's room had been nailed down, and a small compartment had been rented to Kochakin. The rent had been paid in advance to the old man. He seemed to have calmed down quickly, for with his two daughters out on their own, he was no longer expected to bear the cost of living.
For diplomatic reasons, Albina still lived with the old man. The old man never went up to the side where the young man lived, he did not want to meet the hated man, yet in the yard he showed that he was the master of the place by puffing out smoke as loudly as a locomotive.
Before the old man went to work for the co-op, he knew two trades shoemaker and carpenter. Now he uses the boarding shed as a workshop, working in it whenever he can to earn some extra money. He quickly moved his workbench under Paul's window, intent on making things difficult for the tenant. He hammered hard on the nails, and was pleased with himself. He knew that it would get in the way of Paul's reading.
"Just you wait, one of these days I'm going to chuck you out of here ......" he whispered to himself from time to time.
In the distance, near the horizon, the column of smoke spewing from the ship stretched out like a dark cloud. A flock of seagulls screeched and swooped toward the surface.
Kochakin clasped his head in his hands and fell into deep thought. His life, from his childhood until now, flashed before his eyes, scene by scene. How had he lived these twenty-four years? Was it good, or was it bad? He looked back year after year, examining his life like an ironclad judge. The result was that he was quite satisfied; he had lived a pretty good life. Of course, through stupidity, through youth, and more than anything else, through ignorance, a number of mistakes had been made. But the main point was that he had not slept through the years of fiery struggle, that he had found his post in the brutal struggle to seize power, and that a few drops of his blood had been spilled on the red flag of the revolution.
He did not leave the ranks until his energies were all spent. Now that his health had broken down and he could no longer hold his ground, the only way was to walk into a rear hospital. He remembers that in the heat of battle near Warsaw, a soldier was hit by a bullet, fell off his horse and hit the ground. The comrades hurriedly bandaged his wound, handed him over to the paramedics, and galloped onward in pursuit of the enemy. This company of cavalry did not stop in its progress because it had lost one of its soldiers. Such is, and such should be, the case when the struggle is waged for a great cause. Of course, there were exceptions, and he had seen machine-gunners without legs, sitting on their machine-gun carriers, persevering in battle, warriors who terrorized the enemy, whose machine-guns sent death and destruction to the enemy. They became the pride of their teams with their iron will and their ability to shoot a hundred times. But such people don't come around very often.
Now, with his body completely broken, there was no hope of returning to the team. What should he do with himself? He finally learned from Bazhanova about the real condition: he should be prepared for the fact that in the future he will encounter even more terrible things. So, what should be done? This unresolved problem is like a gloomy black hole in front of him.
Since he had lost the most precious thing - the ability to fight, what was the point of living? In today, in the bleak tomorrow, what would he use to prove that he was not wasting his time? What will he use to fulfill his life? Just eating, drinking and breathing? Just as a powerless bystander, watching his comrades fight on? To be a burden to this team? Should he destroy the flesh that has betrayed him? Just one shot to the heart and all the dilemmas were solved! Having been able to live a good life in the past, he should be able to end it in time now. Who could blame a dying warrior for not wanting to struggle in pain any longer?
His hand felt the flattened body of the Browning pistol in his pocket, his fingers gripping the handle out of habit. Slowly he pulled out the pistol.
"Who would have thought that you would ever see the day?"
The muzzle of the gun looked contemptuously into his eyes. Paul put the pistol in his lap and cursed fiercely:
"That's posh heroism, old boy! Finish yourself off, any fool, any time. It's one of the most cowardly and easy ways out of a bad situation. If you can't live, you die. Have you ever tried to beat that life? Have you done all you can to break free from this iron ring? Have you forgotten that near the new city of Wolenski, seventeen charges a day were launched, and did you not finally conquer that city against all odds? Put the pistol away, and never tell anyone about this. Even when life has become unbearable, live it well and make it useful and full."
He stood up and walked toward the main road. A mountain man driving a four-wheeled wagon into town took him along. At the crossroads he bought a local newspaper. There was a notice in the paper that the party members in town were to meet at the club of Jemyon Bedeney. Paul returned home late at night. He gave a speech at the meeting. He didn't realize that it was the last time he would ever speak at a convention.
CritiqueThe scene here depicts one of Paul's spiritual crises. It is the way of inner monologue, vividly portrayed Paul in the disease, the loss of the ability to fight the severe moment, the inner despair, faltering, and ultimately overcoming weakness to overcome the whole process of self-conquest, the psychological portrayal of delicate and touching
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Highlights 2Paul and Daya arrive in Moscow and stay for a few days in the archives of an organization. The head of this organ helped Paul to be admitted to a specialized hospital.
Until now, Paul understood: when a person is young and strong, it is relatively simple and easy to be strong; now, when life is like an iron ring to tighten you, still be able to be resilient, that is the glorious performance.
A year and a half has passed since the night Paul was admitted to the archives. It is difficult to put into words the pain he has suffered in these eighteen months.
In the hospital, Professor Averbach told Paul bluntly that restoring his sight was impossible. In the hopeful future, if the inflammation could go away, pupil surgery could be tried. He recommended surgical treatment to eliminate the inflammation first.
They sought Paul's opinion. Paul said he agreed to do whatever the doctors thought needed to be done.
Death's black wings touched him three times as he lay on the operating table and the scalpel slit his neck to remove one side of his parathyroid gland. Yet Paul was remarkably resilient. Daya waited anxiously outside, and a few hours later she saw her husband as pale as death, but still very much alive and as calm and gentle as ever: "Don't worry, good girl, I'm not going to go to my grave so easily. I have to live, even if I intend to play tricks with the prophecies of those medical authorities. Their diagnosis of my condition is completely correct, but to write a certificate saying that I have lost 100% of my ability to work would be a big mistake. We'll see."
Paul chose a path through which he was determined to return to the ranks of the builders of a new life.
Winter had passed and spring was in full swing outside the window. Paul had his last operation, and had finally come back from the dead, but was bloodless. He felt he could no longer stay in the hospital. He had lived for so long amidst the agonies of various patients and the moans and wails of the dying that it was more difficult than enduring his own pain.
The doctor suggested he have another operation, and he said coldly and stiffly, "That's enough. That's enough for me. I've given a portion of my blood to science, leave the rest for me to do something else."
That same day, Paul wrote a letter to the Central Committee asking for help in settling down in Moscow, where his wife worked and where it was no longer useful for him personally to continue to be hospitalized everywhere. For the first time in his life he asked for help from the Party organization. The Moscow City Soviet allocated him a house. So Paul left the hospital, when his only hope was never to return.
The house, in a quiet alley on Kropotkin Street, was simple, but in his mind it was luxurious. When he woke up in the night, he often still couldn't believe that he was far away from the hospital.
Daya had been converted to a full party member. She worked very hard and despite her very unfortunate personal life, she did not fall behind the other advanced workers. The workers trust this woman of few words: she is elected to the factory committee. Paul's pride in the fact that his lifelong partner had become a Bolshevik eased his pain.
On one occasion, Bazhanova, traveling on business, arrived in Moscow and came to visit Paul. They talked for a long time. Paul told her passionately about the path he had chosen, and it was through this path that he would be able to return to the ranks of the warriors.
Bazhanova, noticing that Kochagin already had silver hair on his temples, said softly, "I can see that you have suffered a lot, but you still have not lost your unquenchable enthusiasm. What is more valuable than this? You have been preparing for five years, and now you have decided to write, which is good. But how will you write it?"
Paul smiled and reassured her, "Tomorrow they will send me a board with a grid engraved on it, made of cardboard. I can't write without this board, it will overlap different lines. I thought long and hard about it and came up with this idea of carving a space in the cardboard so that my pencil wouldn't write outside the straight lines of the grid. It was difficult to write when I couldn't see what I was writing, but it wasn't impossible. I was convinced of this. I tried for a long time, and at first I never could write well, but now I write slowly and carefully with each letter, and as a result it comes out quite well."
Paul set to work. He planned to write a middle-grade novel about the gallant Kotowski Cavalry Division, and the title came out without a second thought: 'Born of the Storm'.
From that day on, Paul devoted his whole being to the creation of this book. He wrote slowly, line after line, page after page. He forgot everything, and immersed himself in the characters in the book, and tasted for the first time the hardships of creation: sometimes those vivid and unforgettable scenes clearly resurfaced in his mind, but he was unable to express them with ink and pen, and the words he wrote seemed so pale and weak, lacking in life and passion.
The part that has already been written, he must memorize all of it word by word and sentence by sentence. Otherwise, once the clues were broken, the work would be hindered. The mother watched her son's work with apprehension.
In the course of his work, he had to recite whole pages and even whole chapters from memory, so that her mother sometimes thought he was crazy. She dared not approach Paul while he was writing, and only timidly said, while picking up the manuscript that had slipped to the floor for him, "Povlusha, you'd better do something else. I've never seen such a thing as you, always writing endlessly ......"
Paul laughed at his mother's disquiet, and reassured the old woman that he had not yet reached the point of complete "madness".
Comments This is a paragraph about Paul in the case of physical disability, blindness, literature as a weapon to continue to fight, writing by tenacity, but also the author of Ostrovsky's life is a true reflection. This spirit of fighting with fate and never giving up is the charm of the work. The vivid and humorous language sets off the optimistic and open-minded character of Paul, and also enhances the infectious power of the text. (This is an online copy)