Dina Rubina. On Verkhnyaya Maslovka

The artist is the hero of this book. Anxious, suspicious, quarrelsome, tragic—a personality that is generally uncharming... and yet so damn attractive to people!
What the average person calls "creativity" and implies a bohemian ease of life, idleness, and disregard for propriety, for the artist turns into the heavy yoke of talent, eternal rebellion, and that endless battle for Life that he wages with Death.