"Life-long journey" or "life as an eternal journey" are vivid allegories, but they can be not only poetic in nature. In the history of Europe there was a period when behind these words there was a cruel reality, very far from poetics. But even in this time, one can distinguish the special beauty and greatness of the entire range of phenomena inherent in human culture. The beauty of being is in an iron cauldron with chowder or almandine-studded golden tiara; and the majesty of death - on the dull blade of a dagger or in the roar of many thousands of horse hooves carrying detachments of horsemen towards each other.