appears, the Guardian exclaims,
«What has their secret messenger to do in our vicious monastery?»
And finally, he admits,
«My Mansion was created for Impure Souls, not for divine gifts!»
Entering into verbal fights with the Guardian, similar to the struggle of a troubled soul with Devil the Tempter, Alice realizes they have something in common, and it’s the fear of Love, because «it’s easier and safer to remain at the level of a dream than trying to realize the dream». And then Alice asks the Guardian the key question, as if mirroring it on herself,
«Tell me, honestly, what do you fear more: Death or Love?»
By the way, all the characters of this book «reflect» each other, like mirrors!
The Guardian denies Love (which means God, because God is Love), trying to offer Alice his artificially created immortality in exchange for her refusal to believe in Love (i.e., in God),
«The only real thing in the world is Death, Alice! Death conquers all, always!»
«Death defeated Love… It’s a pity that Koschey has already arrived, another singer of your dead Love, who pretends to be the Immortal.»
Alice doesn’t give up,
«Your phrase is mirrored, everyone finds the own meaning.»
However, does Love always defeat Death?
A non-standard chain of events puts Alice in front of a global question, «Who am I?» It is logical to assume that she is just the ghost of the real Alice killed by the Guardian, but at this turning point, reminding of V. Bryusov’s poem «Escape» about the main character’s awakening from sleep, the broken pattern provokes chaos from which a «New and definitely Happy Universe» is created.
The attitude of the author to her colleagues-writers is curious:
«…in fact, all writers are magicians»,
«All people are crazy in their own way, especially Creators, such as writers – they are engaged in real magic, the magic of the Word. The most talented are the craziest ones.»
«It was the destination: the soul descended to Earth in order to write about Solon.»
«A book is a separate world, too, isn’t it? And the author is its creator, such a little god, right?»
«After all, in the beginning was the Word.»
In conclusion, I’ll quote the most powerful, in my opinion, thought of this book. It’s about the meaning of… creativity? – no, the meaning of the true Creator’s life.