Мъжество

by Vera Ketlinskaya, Вера Кетлинская

She went back to Sema and sat with her hands pressed to her cheeks, rocking back and forth in distress as she gazed at her sleeping friend. Sema was not handsome. How thin and worn and sallow his face was! But under those closed lids were his eyes-radiant, thoughtful, observant, flashing with emotion at times. All of Sema was expressed in his eyes. When she looked into his eyes and read their meaning Tonya was unaware of his unprepossessing, even a bit comic, appearance. At present his eyes were shut, but it was his eyes she saw. Was it possible that death could shut them forever? She could not face the thought of his death. Did that mean she loved him? No, she knew she did not love him. Perhaps there existed a feeling deeper and stronger than love, more whole, more pure, more humane. The only thing she wanted of Sema was that he should live. That he should be beside her. With him beside her she had no need of love, nor of that music coming to her out of the night sky; she would sit near him and put her hand on his hot forehead and listen to the interesting things he told her in his quick impulsive way...'

662 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 1950

About the author

Vera Kazimirovna Ketlinskaya (1906-1976) - Russian Soviet writer and screenwriter. Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the third degree ( 1948 ).

Reviews

[Chris]

Given to me by a KGB agent assigned to my father when he visited the Soviet Union for a conference