CHAPTER 17. FAMILY HERITAGE.

February 17, 1928.

St. Moritz is an amazing city, but what is even more admirable is the kind of people that this part of the earth has gathered this week: exceptionally professional athletes, unremarkable spectators—all of them are now united by one thing: the thirst to witness how history is made—to witness live and participate in what our contemporaries will later write about and what our descendants will read after a considerable number of years. February 17, 1928, Friday—for me, this is an ordinary day: one of those that make up the relatively long line of my life, but in someone's soul or in someone's mind, in the soul or in the mind of one of our descendants, this day will awaken a truly genuine interest, and perhaps even very unusual thoughts… The Winter Olympics! I, like Ahasuerus, look at what has already been and what will still be! How many people they have clothed in the mantle of greatness and how many people they have cast down into oblivion! The Olympic arena is the blood heir to the places of the greatest battles in human history! Like an ancient ruler, I look at these gladiators, who are fighting only to immortalize their name in history—for what reason should they argue?; what is there for them to prove to each other? In their bodies, or rather in their souls, primitive instincts are at play—people like this, they are ready to generously pay for the services of these gladiators: gaining, perhaps, an even greater range of emotions than the most direct participants in the competition, they remain in the shadows, in obscurity, in the crowd. Crowd! How prone it is to mortally despise the personality, the individual, the apartness! How it adores sentences! It gets the brightest emotions by looking at the defeated—the winner causes irritation and even envy in it!... But is it possible, while in the crowd, to remain a separate person?! Can a drop, being in the ocean, remain a drop?!

I had known Jennison Heaton for a long time—the newfound, first winner of gold medals in skeleton. Today he, together with his own brother, inscribed their name once and for all on the indestructible and unshakable tablets of our history with a two-track sled… Brother! Unlike me, each of them could admire and be proud of his own brother—they were worthy people of a worthy time. Despite everything, neglecting the conventions of this world, they sincerely respected and loved each other—this was their main family heritage: they were taught a feeling of love and respect for each other. Years passed, and now they, being at a considerable distance from me, very restrainedly enjoy the moments of glory bestowed upon them by the Almighty, simply rejoicing at each other's achievements—the eyes of millions are fixed on them, they have gone down in history, having created a certain part of it. So, looking from a small stand at their glory, at their feelings, at their love, I, an ordinary, unremarkable journalist, involuntarily remember the very family heritage that for some reason, or rather for something, was once prepared for me.

February 17! Exactly twenty years ago! I remember perfectly the very day when my blood brother and I were crossing a river! It was a memorable winter: being in the rather sluggish flesh of a still young boy, my soul and my mind fiercely longed to comprehend all that seemed forbidden, mysterious, sacred to them—so, studying with special curiosity a long time before that day the ice hole in the ice of the river, carved by some representatives of Christianity in the form of a cross, thoughts and, most importantly, feelings awakened in my nature that the Christian cross is nothing more than an inverted sword, for in certain moments it is able to grant a person protection, and at other times it can even punish him; I also cannot fail to remember the very beggar who, without even realizing it, at the appropriate time allowed my very young nature to comprehend this world to a large extent—constantly asking for current good deeds, he invariably shed tears from his eyes, which had completely faded from the effects of alcohol… it was they who forced a certain person to a certain act… this person threw a few coins to the one asking!.. two hours later, returning home, I saw death in the very place where, a few moments earlier, there had been life. The beggar’s heart stopped—the reason for this was alcohol. Did that person, who was moved by the beggar's tears, commit a good deed, a благодеяние?! Wishing to help the beggar, the good-natured person could have bought him what he needed—but he tempted him, giving him money, and not a product in natural form…

So, unhurriedly crossing the relatively snowy spaces of that truly cunning river with my blood brother, I suddenly felt a certain indescribable anxiety: I was walking in front, my older brother was following me. Moving further and further away from one bank, and accordingly getting closer and closer to the other bank, I certainly felt some kind of anxiety, but at that moment my essence, like the nature of a horse or a dog before an earthquake, silently howled… Another moment, and my blood brother’s hand grabbed my then small right leg hard—he fell through the ice: his life was now most directly connected with my delay—life or death. Without losing the slightest moment, I immediately, with all the strength at my disposal, began to save the one who later, breathing heavily, said: “You saved my life, and I will never forget that!”…

Six years have passed since that day, that is, it happened fourteen years ago. Time, like water, is capable of many things—oaths, promises, words, inscriptions on the sand are often erased under their influence. At that moment I was returning home after another hard physical football training session. By chance, but certainly not by my own will, the following words reached my ears, which from that moment on, truly forever, changed the life of our family forever: