Status Updates From The Queen of Spades and Sel...

“The world Could not exist if that were so. Nobody Would bother with the squalid cares of life, And all would wallow lavishly in art. We chosen men are few, we happy idlers Who disregard base functions of the day, We priests of nothing but the beautiful...
Is it not true?...But I'm not feeling well...A heavy pain inside... I'll have a sleep...I'll say goodnight.”
-Mozart from the play Mozart and Salieri

The Stationmaster is maybe my favorite short story I’ve ever read. I am haunted by the idea of “what if?”. This story explores it in just 20 pages. I was bawling at the end and it hit me so suddenly because my brain naturally wanted to resolve the problem but, it being Russian Literature, it will always show the reality of life. Many things never get resolved and life just goes on. But, what if….?

“How salt is the taste of another's bread, said Dante, and how hard it is going up and down another's stairs—and who has a better understanding of dependence than the poor ward of a grande dame?” - Lizaveta