Doctor Zhivago by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

you go in your memory, it is always in some external, active manifestation of yourself that you come across your identity—in the work of your hands, in your family, in other people. And now listen carefully. You in others—this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life—your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on that is called your memory? This will be you—the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it.
    " And now one last point. There is nothing to fear. There is no such thing as death. Death has nothing to do with us. But you said something about being talented—that it makes one different. Now, that does have something to do with us. And talent in the highest and broadest sense means talent for life.
    " There will be no death, says St. John. His reasoning is quite simple. There will be no death because the past is over; that ' s almost like saying there will be no death because it is already done with, it ' s old and we are bored with it. What we need is something new, and that new thing is life eternal. "
    He was pacing up and down the room as he was talking. Now he walked up to Anna Ivanovna ' s bed and putting his hand on her forehead said, " Go to sleep. " After a few moments she began to fall asleep.
    Yura quietly left the room and told Egorovna to send in the nurse. " What ' s come over me? " he thought. " I ' m becoming a regular quack—muttering incantations, laying on the hands.… "
    Next day Anna Ivanovna was better.
4
    Anna Ivanovna continued to improve. In the middle of December she tried to get up but she was still weak. The doctors told her to stay in bed and have a really good rest.
    She often sent for Yura and Tonia and for hours on end talked to them of her childhood, spent on her grandfather ' s estate, Varykino, on the river Rynva, in the Urals. Neither Yura nor Tonia had ever been there, but listening to her, Yura could easily imagine those ten thousand acres of impenetrable virgin forest as black as night, and, thrusting into it like a curved knife, the bends of the swift stream with its rocky bed and steep cliffs on the Krueger side.
    For the first time in their lives Yura and Tonia were getting evening clothes, Yura a dinner jacket and Tonia a pale satin party dress with a suitably modest neckline.
    They were going to wear them at the traditional Christmas party at the Sventitskys ' on the twenty-seventh. When the tailor and the seamstress delivered the clothes, Yura and Tonia tried them on, were delighted, and had not yet taken them off when Egorovna came in asking them to go to Anna Ivanovna.
    They went to her room in their new clothes. On seeing them, she raised herself on her elbow, looked them over, and told them to turn around.
    " Very nice, " she said. " Charming. I had no idea they were ready. Let me have another look, Tonia. No, it ' s all right, I thought the yoke puckered a bit. Do you know why I ' ve called you? But first I want a word with you, Yura. "
    " I know, Anna Ivanovna, I know you ' ve seen the letter, I had it sent to you myself. I know you agree with Nikolai Nikolaievich. You both think I should not have refused the legacy. But wait a moment. It ' s bad for you to talk. Just let me explain—though you know most of it already.
    " Well, then, in the first place, it suits the lawyers that there should be a Zhivago case because there is enough money in Father ' s estate to cover the costs and to pay the lawyers ' fees. Apart from that there is no legacy—nothing but debts and muddle—and a lot of dirty linen to be washed. If there really had been anything that could be turned into money, do you think I ' d have made a present of it to the court and not used it myself? But that ' s just the point—the whole case is trumped up. So rather than rake up all