Needless to say, Pavel Korchagin was irreconcilably hostile to someone like Balzac's Rastignacbut all the freedom-loving characters in literature, whether in the works of Pushkin, Byron orStendhal, were close to him in spirit.
He had something which the others had not: his youngheart was possessed of an inexhaustible strength and throbbed with an unguenchable passion ofstruggle, and his mind was fired by the most progressive and noble thoughts of people's freedomand happiness.
Nor did he have to go cap in hand begging for a place, even ifonly the smallest, in the literati gardens.
Thisyoung newcomer, emerging from the fires of the Civil War, should not feel self-conscious findinghimself in such illustrious company.
Pavel Korchagin could take a proud and confident stand among the great and the gloried.
For background they had the history of social relations, social and personaltragedies, and the glory of the peaks attained by human culture.
Many of these heroes, created by writers of genius, shaped the will and the mentality ofwhole generations.
I told him that as I read his book I involuntarily recalled the heroes from the Russian and westernclassics.
At the same time I felt terribly happy thatwhat I had to say to him would, in fact, comfort him.
Although his lips twitched and his smile was shy and gentle, the strength of his unbreakable willwas suddenly revealed to me with the utmost clarity.