" Oh, to live in the fields, to die in the fields, repeating to yourself the one spirit-strewing word, which no one knows but he who receives that word; and it is received in silence. Here amongst themselves they all drink the wine of life, the wine of new joy — thought Piotr; the sunset here cannot be compressed into a book, and here the sunset is a mystery; in the West there are many books; in Russia there are many unspoken words. Russia is that on which the book is smashed, knowledge dissipated, and life itself burns up; on the day when the West is grafted onto Russia, a world-wide conflagration will engulf it: everything will burn that can burn, for only from the ashes of death will rise the soul of paradise, the Fire-bird. "

― Andrei Bely , The Silver Dove