Death has turned my country of merry laughter and ringing sunlight into a grey, dank night. In its darkness, which is less a reality than the web of our darkened souls, it devours souls one by one, person after person.
And who will speak? Who will be that golden-tongued man whose word will pass among us and through us like a light breeze, so that our hearts ease with a child’s sigh, the light of youth plays in our eyes, darkness retreats from us and from within us to its lair, and the horizon of tomorrow opens before our next step; so that my old people enjoy the autumn sun of their peaceful conversations, and the energy of my vigorous young people is free of panic?
Whose word will it be? Who will speak — we ourselves, someone beyond seven mountains and seven seas?.. I do not know.
I know only that we are greatly to be pitied. Pitied because we do not speak, and pitied because we do not listen. Pitied because we do not open our lamb-like hearts to that life-giving breath, wipe these untimely wrinkles from our faces, shake off this murderous fear, banish this suspicion, believe in one another and ourselves. And there is tension, tension, unbearable tension, until we snap and break. I know only that we ought to be ready for that saving word, even if it were to come from us, from our own people: our senses sharpened as if to summon a spirit, stretched to the point of being willing to be deceived — to hear, to believe that word, even an illusory one, and lift the stone from our hearts. Yet we are not ready. This is wrong. This is how we kill ourselves, how we kill one another, how we betray ourselves and one another.
I had sworn that no occasion, no reason would draw my pen away from my work. But what are we doing, boys, what are we doing, Hamo, golden-tongued Hamo, Andranik, Andranik Tsarukyan, Hakob, Hakob Karapents, Artashes, Vardges, Suzy, Viktor, Rafael, Manuk, child with a lamb’s heart… what are you doing?
Or do you think this is your private affair, that despite being writers you belong only to yourselves: that if you wish, you can wrap yourselves up again and send yourselves back, or shroud yourselves in weariness, despair, drunkenness and distrust? Does one emerge with such difficulty, establish oneself with such difficulty, only to abandon it all and leave so easily? Were we not soldiers on the same march, still to make our way through days and years, still to make our lives an example of will, integrity, faith and love, to hearten the many who falter?