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Drift of continents, drift of language. Drift of word-meanings, which cannot be permanent.
One day K. would pursue this feature of mental life, arguably the most mysterious of all: drift .

K. asks why Hertha doesn't discuss her reading with her father and Hertha says with a shrug that her father isn't interested in books like Nineteen Eighty-Four or Animal Farm

'Dad wouldn't waste time reading 'dystopian fiction' - that's just fantasy to him. He is contemptuous of fantasy. He doesn't have time for the real world, he says, let alone an 'unreal' world.

..de ce n-ar invita-o in Edenul Sau, ca s-o scutească de mizeriile obișnuite? Era mai mult decât o idee bună, era o faptă bună. Și Schimnicul Ștrengar, sub impulsul unei tandre stări de beție, nici una-nici două, schiță câțiva pași de dans, ca si cum viața ar trebui să fie un lung, interminabil vals..

No effort of will can change the course of things: birth is the first victory of death.

To be able to think, I need coolness: not this cardboard, overprotected, dependent life.
In the name of this high demand, she decided to take the big leap. And Louis, desperate to be left alone, begged her in vain not to stick her nose out...

They liked only what shook the understanding and challenged the intelligence. They were not cheerful and noisy rascals: no toys, no trifles, but theorems and theories, nothing else. They formed a studious couple, always in activity, and, evening after evening, curled up like two reptiles, they listened to their lessons being recited. The slightest delay in the delivery of data infuriated them to madness...

She sat down on the bench. All the knots insider her immediately slackened, came loose; she suddenly felt she was tired in a way she had never once been in all her life. She laid her head on her arms on the table and that same second fell asleep, fully, happily, all of her...

Sofya felt the storm clouds were not beyond the window but in her herself, inside; they had already been piling up stonily one on top of another for months on end -- and for them not to suffocate her now she needed to smash something to smithereens, or to run away from here, or to cry out in the sort of voice the cobbler had that time about the Last Judgement.

Sofya picked up the ironing board, put it back in place and sat down. She had nothing, neither arms nor legs -- only her heart, and that, turning somersaults like a bird, was falling, falling, falling.

Everything used to be so clear: there had been “things in themselves”, which had been of no concern whatsoever to Tikhmen, and there had been “reflections of things” in Tikhmen, obedient to, and dependent upon, Tikhmen. And now — if you please! It was just as though some kind of evil spirit had got into him, honest to God!

There is in every man something that is him, the whole of him all at once, by which you can distinguish him from a thousand others. And that something in Andrei Ivanych is his forehead: the expanse and sweep of the steppe. And next to it -- his nose: a little Russian snub nose, tow-coloured whiskers, infantry epaulettes. When the Lord God was creating him, He made a broad sweep: the forehead.

Do hurry up Petyenka, the soup will get cold. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t like you having a book at the dinner table…

Oh Alyonka, oh, I’ll just be a moment- oh just a moment… I mean it’s the sixth edition! Do you understand, Bogdanovich’s Dushenka - the sixth edition! In 1812 under the French absolutely everything was burnt and everyone thought only 3 copies had survived…

‘A woman as a guest is more or less all right — you can let her in. But into yourself— no, no.’ Timosha wags his dry finger. ‘Let her into yourself and you’re done for. A woman, brother, she takes root like burdock. And they can’t be got rid of, no way. And so you’ll end up completely overgrown with burdock.’

Her eyes see no more. He closes the lids over the lifeless eyes. Dear face, dear body. This was your forehead, these were your lips. You have left me; but I can still cherish your absence; it keeps your features; it is here, present in that motionless form. Stay, stay with me…

That is what you used to say; I let you choose, but did you know what you chose?

I chose you. I would make the same choice over again. She shook her head. I would not have wished to have had any other life.

He did not yet dare to believe in these words which he heard; but the vice about his heart was loosened, and hope rose in the night.

She was hopelessly lost in this too vast world. We are all lost. Shall I ever find myself again? thought Helene. What’s the use of it? What’s the use of my nails which catch at things, of my heart that wants not to want any more, and yet which still wants in spite of itself? Not to want anything. Not to know anything.

She loved me; she was happy because I was allowed to stay with her. I did not want to spoil her pleasure. I smiled, I spoke cheerfully. We walked right across Paris and ate ices in the place Medicis. The night-air was mild. We sat on the little flight of steps at the corner of the rue Saint-Jacques. She put her head on my shoulder.

You think I'm too young? That's it, isn't it? I don't really understand you?

‘Creation is an effort to express one’s being, but first we must exist. That’s a big job. We must find a way of getting in touch with the self.’ He turned his head from side to side. ‘Looking, feeling— already that puts us in touch.’

Aren’t you afraid of getting bored in the long run?

He laughed heartily.
I’m quite accustomed to that; being bored isn’t so very boring.

'Everyone's seeking after fulfilment. Just look round you; look at the number of people in the street who avoid the middle of the pavement and hug the wall so they can feel that there's something solid beside them; some of them let the tips of their fingers brush along the railings, as if they were plucking a guitar'. He looked at his fingers. 'There's nothing more definite than touching things.'

These carefree faces, on which we allowed our smiles to spread, were for others the mask of tragedy.

I exist outside myself and everywhere in the world. There is not an inch of my path which does not trespass on the path of someone else: there is no way of living which can prevent me overflowing from myself at every moment. This life, which I spin from my own substance, presents a thousand unknown faces to other men, it flows impetuously through their face.

It wasn’t a question of what I did — the fault lay in no act of mine. I was beginning to understand; it lay in the essence of my being; it was my own self. For the first time I thought: perhaps there is no solution.
Guilty if I spoke, guilty if I remained silent. Whatever I did, I was in the wrong.

It wasn’t a question of what I did — the fault lay in no act of mine. I was beginning to understand; it lay in the essence of my being; it was my own self. For the first time I thought: perhaps there is no solution.
Guilty if I spoke, guilty if I remained silent. Whatever I did, I was in the wrong.

Listen, she said.

What is it?

She hesitated.
Later on, I’ll try to detach myself from you, I promise. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to have as deep feelings for each other as possible.

I held her closely to me, her courage touched me deeply.
Is it really worth while getting fonder of each other, if it’s only to be provisional?

Would you like me to be fed up with you?

I wouldn’t like you to spoil your life because of me.

There’s no danger of that. She was rolling a lock of my hair round her finger. It isn’t such fun to be loved; it’s much more interesting to find someone whom one can love.

In the end, a love that is not shared becomes dreary.

…and I felt a great urge in my arms to draw you to me, to hold you to my heart; to my arms the gesture seemed so easy— easy to do, and easy to undo, a transparent gesture and exactly equal to its own weight. But I kept my arms close to my sides…

I smiled. Her letters had annoyed me, they were the letters of an aimless girl. But she must be worth more than that. On her forehead, in her eyes and her cheeks, was a wild animal passion, but her mouth trembled with a thousand tender promises: I liked that face.

Every time the same thing happened; she greeted Paul with pleasure and, after five minutes, she was bored with him. She eyed him critically; he was rather good-looking, with his fair mane of hair and his fresh freckled skin; but under his obstinate forehead, his eyes were too sentimental. The shell was hard, but transparent; perceivable beneath it was an innocent mollusc, just like the one she discovered in herself.

He suddenly felt very happy; he understood why his childhood and his youth had always had a stale taste: it was the rotten sap of the old world which ran in his veins, but now he was going to cut away his roots and make himself a new being.