It seems to me that if there were such a man, for example, as would seize a red-hot bar of iron and clutch it in his hand, with the purpose of measuring his strength of mind, and in the course of ten seconds would be overcoming the intolerable pain and would finally overcome it, this man, it seems to me, would endure something like what was experience now, in these ten seconds, by Nikolai Vsevolodovich.
The eyes – the same two eyes – met his! The man concealed in the niche had also taken a step forward. For one second they stood face to face. Suddenly the prince caught the man by the shoulder and twisted him round towards the light, so that he might see his face more clearly. Rogojin’s eyes flashed, and a smile of insanity distorted his countenance. His right hand was raised, and something glittered in it.
All my life I have spoken without words, and I have passed through whole tragedies on my own account without words.
Why is it that even the best of men always seem to hide something from other people and to keep something back? Why not say straight out what is in one’s heart, when one knows that one is not speaking idly? As it is every one seems harsher than he really is, as though all were afraid of doing injustice to their feelings, by being too quick to express them.
Nothing will ever be gained for nothing. If we labour, we shall have our own opinion as well.
It’s difficult to judge beauty; I am not ready yet. Beauty is a riddle.
For, having begun to build their Tower of Babel without us, they will end in anthropophagy. And it is then that the beast will come crawling to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood from its eyes. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written: “Mystery!
No, if you want to punish him terribly, fearfully, with the most horrible punishment imaginable, but so as to save and restore his soul forever – then overwhelm him with your mercy!
The stub of the candle had long been guttering in its crooked candlestick within that wretched room, shedding its dim light on the murderer and the prostitute who had so strangely encountered each other in the reading of the eternal book.
Yes, I was kind, brave, and honest then.
With love everything is bought, everything is saved. If even I, a sinful man, just like you, was moved to tenderness and felt pity for you, how much more will God be. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people’s sins.
Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness. And if two of you are gathered together – then there is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been fulfilled.
What’s more, the awareness I have that no matter how ridiculous and humiliated I may seem, there lies within me that treasure of strength which will someday make them all change their opinion of me, this awareness – almost since the humiliated years of my childhood – then constituted the only source of my life, my light and my dignity, my weapon and my consolation, otherwise I might have killed myself while still a child.
The soul is cured through children.
But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to be unmoved.
And what if, besides love, there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is already loathing, contempt, revulsion – what then?
I was ready to leave with every load, with every worthy individual of respectable appearance hiring a cab; but absolutely nobody invited me, not one; it was as if they had forgotten me, as if I was actually something alien to them!
You began with a lie, what began with a lie was bound to also end with a lie. That is a law of nature.
So it is that when we are unhappy we sense more acutely the unhappiness of others; rather than dispersing, the emotion becomes focused...
But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go.