Sublime

Les vieux barbons d’ambassade redoutaient un peu le jeune hussard ironique qui se coulait si bien dans la société du pays. Il travaillait à une thèse de géographie sur les confins des empires. Il aurait aimé ne jamais quitter les sommets des montagnes, la profondeur des forêts, cette géographie de la désolation qui, seule, convenait à sa tristesse.

Vĕra said she could not remember unfastening the glass doors and taking the book off the shelf where it stood with its companions, she merely saw herself sitting here in this armchair and – for the first time since her late twenties, a point on which she laid special emphasis – turning the pages which tell the story of the great injustice suffered

Bolbol had worked hard to gain the trust of his neighborhood. The details on his identity card marked him out for suspicion; for four years now, similar details had spelled catastrophe for many others. Thousands of people disappeared without a trace, simply for being born in areas controlled by the opposition, just as many regime supporters had dis

“The most terrifying and important test for a human being is to be in absolute isolation,” he explained. “A human being is a very social creature, and ninety percent of what he does is done only because other people are watching. Alone, with no witnesses, he starts to learn about himself—who is he really? Sometimes, this brings staggering discoveri

He hears his dead undergrad mentor quoting Mark Twain. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. “In the field. I seem to have gotten a little lost.”

d’un garçon de huit ans à sa grand-mère pendant les purges de 1936 en Union soviétique. Voici la première : « Chère Babouchka, je ne suis pas encore mort. Tu es la seule personne que j’aie au monde et je suis la seule que tu aies. Si je ne meurs pas, quand je serai grand et que tu seras très très vieille, je travaillerai et prendrai soin de toi. To

On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick grey mist gathered, as if concealing the mysteries of the changes taking place in nature.

il voyait que tous ceux de son entourage le considéraient comme un désagrément accidentel, comme une inconvenance (tel un homme qui, en entrant dans un salon, exhalerait autour de lui une mauvaise odeur). Toujours les apparences qui avaient été le culte de toute sa vie. Il voyait que personne ne le regrettait, que personne ne voulait même comprendr