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“
Vera's monkey brain was "racing." She wanted someone to talk to her and to get some of her words out, but Daddy and the Seal had now switched to Russian and their conversation was growing more somber, because that's what Russian did to you. Her teacher, the other Vera, had never once smiled, even when reading the ostensibly funny book about a clumsy bear who failed to live by the complex rules of forest society and constantly needed to learn distsiplina (discipline) from his animal peers. "We ca
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”
― Vera, or Faith
― Vera, or Faith
“
Ah, comrade, thought the Count. Now, there was a word for the ages... When the Count was a boy in St. Petersburg, one rarely bumped into it. It was always prowling at the back of a mill or under the table in a tavern, occasionally leaving its paw marks on the freshly printed pamphlets that were drying on a basement floor. Now, thirty years later, it was the most commonly heard word in the Russian language.
A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word of parting
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”
― A Gentleman in Moscow
― A Gentleman in Moscow
