During the summer of 1959, Pasternak began writing "The Blind Beauty", a trilogy of stage plays set before and after Alexander II's abolition of serfdom in Russia. In an interview with Olga Carlisle from "The Paris Review", Pasternak enthusiastically described the play's plot and characters. He informed Olga Carlisle that, at the end of "The Blind Beauty", he wished to depict "the birth of an enlightened and affluent middle class, open to occidental influences, progressive, intelligent, artistic". However, Pasternak fell ill with terminal lung cancer before he could complete the first play of the trilogy.