vita’s Reviews > White Nights > Status Update

“meanwhile your soul yearns and pleads for something else! and in vain does the dreamer rake through his old dreams, as if they were ashes, searching in these ashes for at least some little spark, in order to fan it into flames, and with this rekindled fire warm his heart, which has grown cold, and resurrect in himself once again everything that he had held dear, that has touched his soul…”

“you sense that this inexhaustible fantasy is finally growing tire, that is it becoming exhausted under constant strain; because, you see, you are growing into manhood, you are outgrowing your former ideals; they are being smashed to dust, to bits and pieces; and if there is no other life, then you must build it from these bits and pieces”

i think i liked ‘the meek one’ a lot more than the last short story in this! taking loved ones for granted and realizing only when it’s much too late that there was so much you could’ve done… he was an awful husband though wtf

okay yes. i understand that the general is a hypocrite talking about being ‘humane’ and ‘progressive’ to his subordinates and proceeds to crash one of their weddings to prove this to himself and others because he isnt actually like that… but holy SHIT this story was a snooze fest