At first, it seemed surprising how it was possible to arrange such a spectacle for free, but soon you guess that even with a free spectacle, the inhabitants do not lose out. You never know how many travelers will travel an extra hundred miles for the sake of a truly outstanding spectacle of the Rhine Falls. The night lighting of the waterfall will make all of them spend the night somewhere nearby, live almost a whole day, spend a lot of money, which will go from the pocket of the tourist to the inhabitants of the city, where hardly anyone would look if it were not for the Rhine Falls near it. Rhine Falls in Switzerland. In Switzerland, at every step, you notice how the whole country seems to trade in the beauty of its beautiful mountains, wondrous lakes, amazing waterfalls. The traveler will be taken comfortably everywhere, everywhere he will be fed, watered and calmed, lifted to the region of eternal snows, to the cloudy heights. And on the top of the Jungfrau, where the road was recently laid with great difficulty, the tourist will find trade. The whole country turns into a hotel, as it were, where everything is arranged to the taste of rich guests. The richest tourists are the British, and hotels with English order, with English servants, stand somewhere on the shore of Lake Vierwaldstetter! It seems that it is not in nature for a Russian person to sell the beauty of nature. We also have the beauty of nature. And try to get to them, for example, in the Caucasus! Much determination is needed, and one must prepare oneself in advance for many deprivations and dangers. Europeans use all, even the smallest, features of the place to put this feature into circulation and make money. You yourself will gladly pay and even be grateful to the merchant for helping you on your journey, furnishing you with comforts and serving you.

The next day, in pouring rain, wind and bad weather, I sailed along the upper Rhine to Lake Constance on a very bad little steamer. It seemed that everything yesterday was only in a dream, because today everything is so uninteresting and unfriendly.

Letter Eight. Raphael's Sistine Madonna

I see, I see, my dear friend, that you are already laughing when you read only the title of my letter! Do you laugh at my very intention to write about the greatest work of art? This, of course, is because you are well aware of my lack of talent in all branches of art. Namely, mediocrity. There is no gift. God did not give... In the art of painting, I am a complete zero. I myself was convinced of this sad truth in my childhood, when I tried to draw houses, horses, dogs, and the like. But, my friend, I have never been insensible to beauty. Only I have always been incomparably more attracted to the beauty of God's world. I am almost indifferent to the beauty of paintings, but some paintings still broke through the wall of my indifference, the ice of my artistic insensitivity melted before them - and I experienced such strong impressions that I cannot forget them for many years. The Sistine Madonna has shocked me, and I want to talk to You, my Friend, about this outstanding experience of mine in the West. As I sat before the Madonna, I involuntarily remembered You, and then I mentally shared my experience with You. I remember well how, on my return home, at my first meeting with you, I began to talk about the Madonna. You, my Friend, then took my speeches not only lightly, but even with laughter. Several years have passed since then, and I now address you with a letter about the Madonna. After that, I tried to comprehend my immediate experience. I want to share with you my thoughts about Madonna. Many people have written about Her, different people have written about Her. And why not try to say something about Her to a person who has anything to do with theology? After all, this picture depicts the Mother of God, the object of our religious worship and theological reasoning. But I will talk about my impressions in advance...

It was on a summer day in Kazan, on a bright and cheerful summer day, when I went to the Dresden Gallery. Visiting art galleries is a kind of duty for all travelers. This debt has always seemed difficult to me. It's her fault, my artistic mediocrity. What, for example, did it cost me to walk around the endless halls of the Louvre in Paris with their thousands of paintings! But someone would walk all day long and be delighted all the time. I approached the Dresden Gallery with the thought of the Madonna, and with a sceptical thought at that. "The greatest work of art"... See! Maybe all the loud fame of the Madonna is based on a kind of autosuggestion of the audience!

As soon as I entered the gallery, the usual whole rows of halls went. For some reason, I thought that I would see the Madonna immediately and first of all. One hall, another, a third... There is no Madonna, and other paintings somehow do not attract attention. I lose patience and turn to one of the gallery employees with the question of how to find the Sistine Madonna. He directed me down a long corridor. I enter a small room. I see a whole crowd of people, but I don't see the picture, because it turns its back to the entrance. I make my way through the crowd of spectators and turn to the painting. She is alone in the whole room. Everyone here looks only at her. At first, something like disappointment. Madonna did not impress immediately. I look more closely - and in my soul there is already some kind of anxiety, which always happens when you see something special, difficult, not immediately understandable. A few more minutes... And - the picture seems to have disappeared. In front of me is the Madonna herself. V.A. Zhukovsky said beautifully: "This is not a picture, but a vision." Yes, and I felt that I was not looking at a picture, but seeing a wonderful heavenly vision. As soon as there was room on the sofa near the wall opposite the entrance, I sat down on the sofa and stayed in a kind of semi-oblivion for at least an hour. In front of me, on the clouds, a wonderful vision seemed to move smoothly and majestically and at the same time stood motionless. Slightly fluttering blue clothes, as if a veil inflated and knocked aside by the wind, create the impression of movement, but the Mother of God Herself is motionless and as if immersed in deep and concentrated thought. And Her face, Her eyes... How can you tell us about them? And what can be written about them in ink? Serious and gentle eyes look into the very soul, and the whole beautiful spiritual image attracts and detaches from the earth. The face of Raphael's Madonna is the face of dreams and dreams of unearthly, Heavenly, pure, passionless. It is not in vain that the papal tiara stands somewhere in the corner, as if it was abandoned. This tiara represents the land with which the papacy is so closely connected. The Heavenly Mother does not look at anything, does not notice anything. And when the wondrous eyes of the wondrous face looked at me, I did not want to see anything but this face alone. I cannot understand why some people in the picture like the figure of Sixtus even more than the face of the Mother of God (for example, V.V. Rozanov. "Italian Impressions"), why others speak with enthusiasm about the Angels. For me, only the Madonna herself existed. I even wished that there was nothing else in the picture except for Her face. The figure of Sixtus positively disturbed me, perhaps because it reminded me of the papacy, this historical monster in the bosom of Christianity, which is contrary to me. The papacy is a symbol of the materialization of Christianity; In the papacy everything is coarse, proud, carnal. And the Madonna is all Heaven, all spiritual, all meek, noble and heavenly affectionate. Sixtus is depicted in Raphael in a kind of blissful tenderness. And that's why I can't believe it's my dad. I cannot imagine any of the historically famous Roman popes in blissful tenderness. I can imagine them in the consciousness and ecstasy of power and might, but tenderness is the virtue and bliss of our ecclesiastical East. And I did not experience tenderness before the Madonna, but some kind of quiet introspection or admiration.

In the upper two corners of the picture there is a dark green curtain. As if this curtain was open, and a wondrous vision appeared before you. Indeed, when you contemplate the Madonna, it seems that the veil has been lifted into another life, into an unearthly life, into the realm of Heaven and Heavenly moods.

Yes, my friend, my impression of the Madonna was very strong. When I went out into the next room and saw a whole row of Madonnas, they seemed to me miserable and poor, unworthy of attention, and soon I left the gallery altogether. And the image of the Sistine Madonna lives in me even now and often floats out in my mind. Do not think that Madonna can be judged by copies or photographs. To those who have not seen the Madonna, they will say nothing. After all, I had seen a lot of pictures before, but I remained completely indifferent. Now I cannot be indifferent. With all my being I felt that there was some kind of miracle here that could attract people from afar. On another occasion, when I was comparatively close to Dresden (though within the limits of Austria-Hungary), I hesitated very much whether I should not go back to Dresden only to see the Madonna, and leave the city at once. I have already looked at the train schedule, and there was even a ticket to Dresden. But I was not destined to see the Madonna for the second time. However, I would not consider it empty and stupid eccentricity if someone traveled, for example, from Moscow to Dresden, saw the Madonna there and immediately returned back. No, Madonna deserves it. I would even forbid making copies and pictures of Madonna. I understand Zhukovsky, who did not even approach the picture when he saw "that a figure with a powdered head was sticking out before it, that this accursed figure still held a brush in its impudent hand and mercilessly cursed at the great soul of Raphael." The same Zhukovsky did not want to buy Miller's print, because "it can be said to insult the sanctity of memory." The Sistine Madonna is unrepeatable and inimitable. This is a sign of her exclusivity. Why, it is the only phenomenon that is recognized by almost everyone, with a few exceptions. I had to come across a lot of descriptions - impressions of Madonna. And here is a remarkable phenomenon: Madonna did not make a special impression on those people who are organically unsympathetic to me. Herzen said nothing more about the Madonna than that Raphael painted her with his beloved Fornarina. Belinsky called Zhukovsky's enthusiastic letter about the Madonna nonsense. "This," wrote Belinsky, "is an aristocratic woman, the daughter of the tsar... She does not look at you with contempt - that does not suit her, she is too well-bred to offend anyone with contempt, not even people ... - no: she looks at you with cold benevolence, at the same time fearing to get dirty from your eyes and to grieve us plebeians by turning away from us." That was nonsense, and stupid at that! Granovsky wrote more frankly: "Raphael's Madonna is too lofty for my understanding, at least now. I looked at her for a long time, looked at her with awe, but I think that if she had not been pointed out to me, I would have passed by. And the awe, it seems, was inspired in me not by the picture itself, but by what I heard and read about it."

Я привел Тебе, мой Друг, эти не особенно почтительные отзывы о Мадонне только затем, чтобы показать, насколько люди бывают различны, друг на друга непохожи. Думается мне, Мадонна не существует для рационалистов, у кого подавлен, как бы засыпан сухим песком рационалистических понятий, живой родник мистики.

А в Мадонне Рафаэля я и усматриваю нечто, как сказали бы философы, иррациональное, сверхразумное, мистическое. В ней есть какая-то тайна. Рафаэль писал Мадонн, кажется, без числа, но многие ли из них известны широким кругам, а не одним только, всегда тесным, кружкам людей, сведущих в искусстве и даже в истории искусства? И в то же время, кому не известна одна его Мадонна - Сикстинская! Сколько картин существует на свете, по галереям и музеям! Но многие ли из них оживают пред зрителем и как бы превращаются в видение? Есть великое множество картин, живо написанных. Иной художник живо схватит на полотно уличную сценку. В морских видах Айвазовского так и катятся волны и будто так же прозрачна их бирюза, как на самом морском просторе. Но здесь видения еще нет. Видение начинается там, где приоткрывается завеса таинственного и невидимого. Всякое видение непременно Небесно. Мадонна и была для меня видением Небесным.

Часто задаются вопросом: что хотел выразить Рафаэль своей Мадонной? Я думаю, что он ничего не хотел выразить, но прямо выразил, может быть, и для себя непонятную, и самим не осознанную тайну. Есть предание, что Рафаэлю и самому было именно видение, и ему удалось рассказать всему миру и целым векам о своем видении.

Видение всегда неуловимо в своей сущности. Оно не бывает отчетливо. В видении именно только приоткрывается завеса в область невидимого, и сквозь небольшое отверстие лишь смутно чувствуется, что за видимой частью стоит еще целая бесконечность.

Но что же выразил Рафаэль в Сикстинской Мадонне? Что Она такое? Многие на это отвечают: это - мать! Но если Она - только мать, то этот образ не относится к Богоматери. Ведь сущность и тайна Богоматери не в том только, что Она - мать. Мне кажется, что Мадонна отражает идею не матери только, но и Богоматери. А чем Богоматерь отличается от матери? На этот вопрос может дать ответ одно православное богословие, а рассудку и неверию здесь остается только замолчать. Здесь тайна великая, тайна единственная, потому особенно и привлекающая. Более того, эта тайна Богоматери, как говорит наше богословие, необходима человечеству, жаждущему спасения.