Stella Feenstra

“He [Ivan Alexeyevich Ognev] walked along, and he thought how often it happens in life that one meets wonderful people and what a pity it was that nothing remains of these meetings but memories. Sometimes a flight of cranes will pass like a flash across the horizon and a light wind carries back their wailing, rapturous cry, but a minute later, no matter how greedily you may peer into the blue distance, you will not see a sign of them nor hear a sound--in just the same way people, with their faces and words, will flash into our lives and melt into our past, leaving nothing behind but insignificant traces in the memory.
(Verochka, 1887)”
― Anton Chekhov, Late-Blooming Flowers and Other Stories