Mark André ’s Reviews > The Insulted and the Injured > Status Update

... if it were possible for everyone of us to describe all his secret thoughts, without hesitat­ing to disclose what he is afraid to tell and would not on any account tell others, what he is afraid to tell his best friends, and what he is even at times afraid to con­fess to himself, the world would be filled with such a stench that we should all be suffocated.

If there was time I’d play you Beethoven’s third con­certo. That’s what I’m playing now. All those feelings are in it ... just as I feel now.

I kept looking at her with the greatest interest. I was eager to get to know this strange girl. She was quite a child, but a strange child, a child of convictions, with steadfast principles, and with a pas­sionate, innate love of goodness and justice. If one really might call her a child she belonged to that class of thinking children, who are fairly numerous in our Rus­sian families.

We’ve everything we can want, but we’re always alone.

Imagine, my friend, poor me getting caught like this. She’s crammed me into a linen shirt, stuck in studs, put on me slippers, Chinese dressing-gown— combed my hair herself and pomaded it with bergamot; she wanted to sprinkle me with scent— creme brulee, but at that point I wouldn’t stand any more, I rebelled and asserted my conjugal authority_ _

Forgive me, Vanya. The only thing I can suggest to you by way of satisfaction is to beat me up for having troubled you un­necessarily. If you want the satisfaction, go ahead; only, for Christ’s sake, hurry up! Don’t keep me. I’ve business, I’m late....

After all, I can’t ask more of your heart than it can give me . . . .

A black cat has run between us.

We must put an end to this painful scene. This blind and savage outburst of unbridled jealousy shows me your character in quite a novel light.

Romancing, romancing,” the prince pronounced in an undertone, as though speaking to himself, “solitude, brooding, and novel-reading.