Over all of Vasily Fiveevsky’s fate hung a cruel and incomprehensible predestination. As if marked by some unknown curse, from his youth he bore a heavy burden of sorrow, illnesses, and losses, and the bloody wounds in his heart never healed. Among people he remained alone—like a solitary planet among others—and it seemed that a special—ruinous and corrupting—air surrounded him, like an invisible, transparent cloud…