What constitutes the freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness. But still more astonishing is the fact that this universe had something in it that distinguished the sound of its ocean, the smell of its flowers, the rustle of its leaves, the hues of its granite and the sadness of its autumn fields both from those of every other universe that exists and ever has existed within people, and from those of the universe that exists eternally outside people. It is astonishingly similar to the universes still reflected within the skulls of millions of living people. This universe is astonishingly similar to the universe that exists outside people. The universe inside a person has ceased to exist. The stars have disappeared from the night sky the Milky Way has vanished the sun has gone out Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been extinguished millions of leaves have died the wind and the oceans have faded away flowers have lost their colour and fragrance bread has vanished water has vanished even the air itself, the sometimes cool, sometimes sultry air, has vanished. The life-processes – respiration, the metabolism, the circulation – continue for some time, but an irrevocable move has been made towards slavery consciousness, the flame of freedom, has died out.

Consciousness first weakens and then disappears. Life is freedom, and dying is a gradual denial of freedom. “When a person dies, they cross over from the realm of freedom to the realm of slavery.

The life and fate of vasily grossman