"Zoya, what are you writing?"
"Nothing particular."
That means that Zoya is sitting over the thick squared notebook with a calico binding—her diary.
Zoya rarely takes it up now and never writes much.
"Let's have a peep!" asks Shura.
Zoya shakes her head.
"So you don't want to show it to your own brother? All right then!"
Shura's angry, threatening tone is, of course, a joke but there is a hint of resentment in it.
"My own brother will read it and then start laughing at me," answers Zoya. But afterwards she says quietly to me, "You can read it if you like."
It was a strange diary, not a bit like the one Zoya had kept at twelve years old. She did not describe any private events, but would write in just a few words, or a phrase from a book, or a line of poetry. But behind the words and poetry of others I could see what my girl was thinking about, what worried her.
Among others I found this note:
"Friendship means sharing everything, everything! And having thoughts and plans in common. Sharing joy and grief. It seems to me that what they write in books about only people with opposite characters making friends, is untrue. The more there is in common, the better it is. I should like to have a friend whom I could trust with all my 'secrets. I am friends with Ira, but although we are the same age it always seems to me that she is younger."
There were these lines from Nikolai Ostrovsky:
"Man's dearest possession is life, and it is given to him to live but once. So he must live as to feel no torturing regrets for misspent years, so he must live that, dying, lie can say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world—the fight for the Liberation of Mankind."
There were also these words—whether they belonged to Zoya or not I have no way of knowing:
"He who does not think too much of himself is much better than he thinks."
And again: "Respect yourself, but do not have too high an opinion of yourself. Do not shut yourself up in your shell, and do not be one-sided. Do not shout that people do not respect or value you. Work harder to perfect yourself, and you will have more confidence."
I shut the notebook with a strange complex feeling. Its pages gave me a glimpse of budding, questing thought—as of someone searching for a road, coming out onto the right way, and then losing and finding it again. It was a large clear mirror where every movement of the heart and mind was reflected.
I decided not to read Zoya's diary any more. It does us good to be alone with ourselves for a while, to look into ourselves, to think things over, safe from intruding eyes, even if they are the eyes of a mother.
"Thanks for trusting me," I said to Zoya. "But the diary is yours, and no one should be allowed to read it."
Next: The Leader’s Vow