With an effort of will, he drove this memory away - and looked at Vasily - already calmly, with completely different eyes. Seems like he figured out what was going on. Plain rivers flow calmly, and mountain rivers are stormy. The feeling, put in a rigid framework, squeezed from all sides by the rocks of prohibitions and the cliffs of decency, boils up like an unbridled mountain river.
Indeed, whether he wants it or not, something is happening between these two. He felt as if he were holding an open pulsating nerve in his hands. Then, many years ago, it seemed to him that he had managed to break this invisible connection, and he hoped that time and the course of life would inevitably finish the rest, but he was wrong.
This bond turned out to be much stronger and more elastic. Could be interrupted it now? And is it necessary to do this?.. Who knows Marina better than herself? What if just to keep them at a distance? Perhaps it is worth again leaving somewhere far away, captivating with joint work, persuading to start treatment... Vasily stoically endured the prolonged pause, and Vladimir continued:
- A person in his personal development goes through several crisis periods. Then Marina just had such a period, which was further exacerbated by this whole situation of moral choice and choice of a further path. I saw how she is burdened by the constant presence of people and seeks solitude. She needed it like air. Well, a talented person is kind of like an amphibious man: neither on land nor at sea. So it is: neither with people, nor without people. So I tried to create ideal conditions for her further spiritual development and maturation. And even when she was among us, she had an amazing ability to turn off reality, remaining only a hundredth part of attention here. It looks like a waking dream. With the naked eye, one could notice: oh, she had already flown away somewhere, only a shell remained... In the North, ideal conditions were created for it: now a commune, now complete loneliness, when we left for several days. There her creativity reached the required critical level, and upon her return she began to paint without stopping. And there I had an unique opportunity, without arousing suspicion, to comprehensively investigate this representative of humanity of the future, humanity of geniuses. Do you remember I told you back then, in the Crimea? By the way, for the same purpose, I initially planned to get you.
Vasily looked at Vladimir, and the feeling of a huge irreparable loss that he had endured through all these years fell upon him with renewed vigor.
He sat opposite his longtime friend, and seemed to see his reflection in the mirror and thought: why did he get all this, and I did not?
But that was a question without an answer. And light sadness for the past again gave way to some kind of sick rage. He desperately wanted all of them to be twenty years old again, but this time he would not have given it up without a fight, for nothing, no matter how it all would end. As a catastrophe? Well, okay, then let it be a catastrophe.
from "Eternal Point of View" novel