There was one other constant in Viktor’s life, a quiet light that illuminated his whole inner world. It was his mother who had given him this light, but he did not realize this. She felt Viktor’s life was more important than her own; nothing made her happier than to sacrifice herself for her son’s happiness.
…like many people with a sincere belief in the absolute importance of their work, [Viktor] could be cold and unfeeling, even merciless. He saw his mother’s love, and the sacrifices she made for him, as entirely right and natural. One of his mother’s cousins once told him that, when she was a young widow, a man she very much liked had tried for several years to persuade her to marry him. She refused, afraid this would prevent her from devoting all her love and attention to her son. She had doomed herself to loneliness. And she had said to this cousin, “It doesn’t matter. When Viktor’s grown up, I’ll live with him. I won’t be alone as an old woman.” Viktor was touched by this story, yet it did not move him at all deeply.
—Vasily Grossman, Stalingrad, p. 186, translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler
