Thus ends The Count of Monte Cristo. And these are the most important words in the novel. And an invaluable guide in life.
This is how The Count of Monte Cristo ends. This book was read to me by my grandfather when I was little, following Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers. It was the last book he read aloud to me almost every day before bed. He immediately said: the main thing will be on the last page — these very words. My grandfather, the writer Felix Svetov, lived a long life. The son of the executed «enemy of the people», he himself, already an adult, was imprisoned for «anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation.» It seemed that he would not get out of prison alive. But he survived, and I got to know him well. Hear stories about what it is like to fight a private person against the state machine, what it means to be a dissident in a totalitarian country, and what is the meaning of the words «For your freedom and ours.» We managed to become friends. A phrase from «Monte Cristo», a rather ruthless book, I remember every time I remember him — my friend. Realizing that inside the chaos and despair that always stand with our backs, simple words are hidden. And next to them others — «to be free and have self-esteem.» They are stored on a shelf with children’s books, guessed in photographs of long-gone loved ones. They live in a forgotten evening in a completely different Moscow, where grandfather sits in an armchair and finishes reading the last book. And they save.»
* Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) — French writer. The Count of Monte Cristo was written in 1845.