Cathedrals of Culture — The National Library of Russia

People degenerate because they are unable to connect the beginning and the end.

There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospekt, at least in St. Petersburg; for it, Nevsky Prospekt is everything. I know for a fact that not one of its pale office clerks would exchange Nevsky Prospekt for all the tea in China. Not just the twenty-five-year-old with the dashing moustache and the beautifully tailored frock coat, but even the fellow with white whiskers sprouting from his chin and a head as smooth as a silver platter — he too is enraptured by Nevsky Prospekt. And lest we forget the ladies! Nevsky Prospekt finds even more favour with the ladies.

Their literary tastes were wide-ranging, with my mother preferring the Russian classics. Neither she nor my father held definite opinions about literature, music or art, although in their youth they personally knew a number of Leningrad writers, composers and painters. They were simply readers — evening readers, to be more precise — and they were always careful to renew their library cards.

Returning from work, my mother would invariably carry a library book in her string bag, along with potatoes or cabbage, wrapped in newspaper to keep it from getting soiled.

It is curious: what are people most afraid of? A new step? A new word of their own? That is what they fear most of all… But then again, I talk too much. That is why I do nothing: because I talk. Or perhaps it is the other way round: I talk because I do nothing. I learned to talk this past month, lying in the corner all day and thinking about the days of Tsar Pea. But why am I walking now? Am I capable of this? Is this serious? Not at all. Just amusing myself with fantasies; toys! Yes, toys indeed.

All six tiny rooms had steam heating, so the little flat was filled with a stifling, humid hothouse heat. The windowpanes sweated, and Sofia Petrovna's visitor sweated; both maid and husband eternally sweated. Sofia Petrovna Likhutina was herself covered in perspiration like a Japanese chrysanthemum covered in warm dew. How could there be any perspective in such a hothouse? And there was no perspective.

Due to my husband's position, I am often obliged to go out in society, receive guests and return their visits, and attend evening parties and dinners. But I have no friends, male or female. I have nothing in common with the local ladies, and I do not believe in friendship between men and women.

But that is enough about me. If you reply, tell me at least something about yourself. What are you like? Where do you make your home? Do you prefer Shakespeare or Shelley, Goethe or Dante, Balzac or Flaubert? Do you like music, and what kind? Are you married? Are you bound up in some dreary alliance? Or perhaps you and your bride are in that tender and beautiful phase when everything is new and joyous, when there are still no memories that only weary and deceive you into believing there was some happiness, incomprehensible and unused?

She is still only a little girl, and there has never once been a sign of even a maiden in her. With her hearty nature and simple, almost earthy upbringing, she certainly did not promise to remain a virgin. But all the same, she is approaching womanhood. What kind of woman will she be? What kind of woman should she be?

One day, while strolling through the school hall during the long break, Olya Meshcherskaya spoke very quickly to her favourite friend, the tall, plump Subbotina:

“I read in one of Papa's books — he has lots of curious old books — what a woman must have to be truly beautiful… There was so much in it that I cannot remember everything: black eyes boiling with pitch — honestly, that is exactly what it said, boiling with pitch! — eyelashes black as night, a delicate blush on the cheeks, a slender figure, arms longer than usual — you understand, longer than usual! — a small foot, a moderately large bosom, a calf rounded just so, a knee the colour of a seashell, sloping shoulders… I learned a lot of it almost by heart, and it is all perfectly true! But do you know the main thing? Light breathing! And I have it. Just listen to me sigh — it is true, is it not?”

Now that light breathing has dispersed in the world again, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.

Mine is the realm of completeness. Here there is a copy of every book ever printed in this part of the world, and a second copy too. Book after book. There is something disconcerting, even frivolous, about such abundance, in which the extraordinary resides alongside the merely remarkable, flanked by the middling and sometimes the trite.

Many a book inside these walls was the occasion of bloodshed in the world outside. Wars have been sparked by the slightest alteration in the text of the Bible. Now the books have found their peace and come to rest alongside one another. But there were times when they had to be hidden, disowned and struck off the list. Any book stripped of its call number no longer existed and was safe from being sold, given away or even destroyed.

There can be beauty in compliance with the system: numberless books were deprived of existence and could therefore continue to live. Others moved to a secret collection. They were there, but equally they were not. Inquiries met with blank stares. When the winds of fate turned, the books would stir and begin their return to the front row.

Now visitors request them again. Now. It is always now. Someone once said that now is now, and the problem no longer exists.

Lie to me, but lie in your own way, and then I will kiss you. To lie in one's own way is almost better than telling the truth in someone else's way. In the first case you are human; in the second, you are only a bird. The truth will not get away, but life can be stifled.

The low sun shone yellow on the empty fields. The horses splashed steadily through the puddles. He watched the horseshoes flashing past, his black brows knitted, and thought: “Yes, you have only yourself to blame. Yes, of course, those were the best moments. Not merely the best, but truly magical! All around, scarlet dog rose bloomed; avenues of dark lindens stood… But, my God, what would have happened later on? What if I had not abandoned her? What nonsense! This Nadezhda is not the keeper of a lodging house, but my wife, the mistress of my house in St. Petersburg, the mother of my children.” And, closing his eyes, he shook his head.

But let this one thing not be hidden from you, beloved: with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

We imagine eternity as an idea we cannot comprehend, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? And what if, instead of all that, there is one little room, like a bathhouse in the country, black with soot, with spiders in every corner? And that is all eternity.

Death, the most terrible of evils, has nothing to do with us: while we exist, death is not here; and when death comes, we no longer exist.

O Lord, let me know my end and the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days as short as a handbreadth, and my lifetime is as nothing before You.

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.