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agree with you hares, hounds, and horses that the brightness of her future depends upon her performing on that tour.”
“Have I ever told you about Ribbon Day at the academy?” he began. “Yes,” Sofia said. “You have.” Furrowing his brow, the Count reviewed all of the conversations that he had ever had with his daughter in chronological order and could find no evidence of having told her the tale before. “I may have mentioned something about Ribbon Day once or twice,” he conceded, to be polite, “but I am quite sure that I have never told you this particular story. You see, as a boy I had a certain aptitude for marks-manship. And one spring—when I was about your age—there was a Ribbon Day at the academy in which
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“In life, it is the same for all of us. We are bound to face moments of trepidation whether we venture onto the floor of the senate, the field of athletics, or . . . the stage of a concert hall.”
For if serenity should be a hallmark of maturity, then impetuousness should be a hallmark of youth.
For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”
Awesome !
“If I am to play the piano in Paris,” said Sofia after a moment, “I only wish that you could be there in the audience to hear me.” The Count smiled. “I assure you, my dear, were you to play the piano on the moon, I would hear every chord.”
Luckily, the answer to this conundrum was provided by the philosopher Zeno in the fifth century b.c. Achilles, a man of action and urgency, trained to measure his exertions to the tenth of a second, should be able to quickly dispense with a twenty-yard dash. But in order to advance a yard, the hero must first advance eighteen inches; and in order to advance eighteen inches, he must first advance nine; but to advance nine, he must first advance four and a half, and so on. Thus, on his way to completing the twenty-yard dash, Achilles must traverse an infinite number of lengths—which, by
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the clock’s ticking revealed the Count to be a Man of Intent.
if, as a rule, the Count generally avoided drinking after eleven, he absolutely never drank after midnight. In fact, he had even found himself quoting his father to Sofia on the subject, asserting that the only things that came from the practice were foolhardy acts, ill-advised liaisons, and gambling debts.
life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds.
any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve—if not glacially, then at least gradually.
“Enough! We have no interest in your scruples, Alexander Ilyich. Just because you witnessed the Comet of 1812, does not mean that Sofia must wear a petticoat and bustle.”
Laughed
“What’s gotten your goat?” “Nothing has gotten my goat. My goat is not gotten.” “I suppose it’s understandable,” she continued philosophically. “A father is bound to be a little unnerved by the discovery that his daughter has become a beautiful young woman.” “I was not unnerved,” the Count said, taking a step back. “My only point was that the back of the dress did not have to be cut quite as low.” “You must admit that her back is lovely.” “That may be so. But the world needn’t be presented with every single one of her vertebrae.”
Laughed 😂
What sort of Divinity, he seemed to be thinking, would devise a world in which an aging man’s malady afflicts the very attribute that has set him apart from his fellow men and elevated him in the eyes of all?
What sort of Divinity, Emile? The very same who rendered Beethoven deaf and Monet blind.
But the Communist Party was not a “State of Nature.” Quite to the contrary, it was one of the most intricate and purposeful constructions ever manufactured by man. In essence: the hierarchy of all hierarchies.
