"The wind howled over the graves. Today the dead seemed more dead than ever... Deborah ran in the direction of the cemetery. As she ... Deborah sank down before one of the first gravestones in the first row. With numbed fists she freed it from snow, as though she wanted to assure herself that her voice would penetrate more easily if this smothering layer between her prayer and the ear of the blessed were cleared away. And then a cry burst forth from Deborah."

"Black and satiated, the flies stuck motionless to the hot sunny walls"

"With a bright flash the rising sun struck the window, lit the polished tin of the samovar, and transformed it into a curved mirror"

"The bedbugs marched down the walls in orderly ranks, went into formations on the ceiling, waited with bloodthirsty malice for the advent of of darkness, and fell upon the camp of the sleepers. The cockroaches ran out of the cracks near the kitchen sink, among the dishes, into the food. The nights were hot and oppressive. Through the open window came, from time to time, the distant rumble of unknown trains, the short, regular thunder of miles of busy world, and the thick steam from neighbours' houses, from garbage cans and dirty gutters."

"And he propped his sterile pen against the inkwell, pinched off a bit of the guttering candlewick, as though in the hope that steadier light would inspire him with a happy formulation, and drifted off into memories of childhood in the village, his mother, cadet school. He studied the huge shadows that little things cast against the bare, blue-washed walls, the gleaming curvilinear sabre on its hook by the door, the dark ribbon pushed hrough the sabre's handguard. He listened to the unabating rain, and its drumming chant on the tin windowsill."

"The baron trimmed the hedges and mowed the lawn, guarded the forsythia in early spring and then the elderberry bushes against thievish and unauthorized hands; he supplanted the rotten pickets with fresh, smoothly planed ones, repaired tools and tackling, bridled and saddled his bay horses himself, replaced rusty locks on gates and portals, carefully wedged neatly carved slats in worn-out sagging hinges, spent days on end in the forest, shot small game, slept in the gamekeeper's hut, looked after poultry, manure, and harvest, fruit and espalier flowers, groom and coachman."

"He tried hanging it now on this wall, now on that; feeling flattered delight as he scrutinized his hard, jutting nose, his cleanshaven jaw, his pale, narrow lips, his gaunt cheekbones rising like hills in front of the tiny black eyes, and the low, heavily creased forehead covered by the awning of close-cropped, bristly, thorny hair. Only now did he grow acquainted with his features; he sometimes had a mute dialogue with his own face. It aroused unfamiliar thoughts and memories, baffling, quickly blurring shadows of wistfulness. He had needed the portrait to experience his premature ageing and great loneliness; from the painted canvas loneliness and old age came flooding toward him. Was I always like that? he wondered. Did i never used to be any different? "

"A peasant walks across is field in the springtime, and by summer, all trace of his footsteps has been covered by the wheat he has sown"

"The paternal hand in the dark-gray kid glove rested in slightly bent familiarity on the blue sleeve of his uniform. It was the same hand that, haggard and wrathful, encased in the stiff clattering cuff, could admonish and warn, leaf through papers with sharp, quiet fingers, shove drawers into their compartments with grim jolts, twist keys so resolutely that the locks seemed locked for all eternity. It was the hand that drummed on the table's edge with lurking impatience if things were not to the master's liking and on the windowpane if something awkward had occurred in the room. This hand could raise its thin forefinger if someone had neglected something in the house; it could clench into a mute, never-striking fist, settle tenderly around the forehead, remove the pince-nez gingerly, bend lightly around the wineglass, bring the black Virginia cigar caressingly to the lips. It was his father's left hand, long familiar to the son. And yet it was as though he were only now coming to understand that it was his father's hand, the paternal hand. "

"She half turned. Now, her upper body twisting at the hips, she sat, a lifeless being, a mannequin made of wax and silk lingerie. From under the curtain of her long black lashes, her bright eyes emerged, false, simulated, icy lightning. Her slender hands lay on the panties like white birds embroidered on the blue silk background. And in a deep voice that he believed he had never heard from her and that sounded as if produced by a mechanism in her chest, she said very slowly, 'I never miss you.'"

"Winter came. In the morning, when the regiment marched out, the world was still in darkness. The delicate film of ice on the streets splintered under the hooves of the horses. Gray breath streamed from the nostrils of the animals and the mouths of the riders. The matte breath of the frost beaded on the sheaths of the heavy sabers and on the barrels of the light carbines. The small town grew even smaller. The muffled, frozen bugle calls could lure none of the usual onlookers to the curbside anymore."

"Never again! In front of Carl Joseph's eyes, this word stretched out to infinity, a dead sea of numb eternity. The little lieutenant clenched his white weak fist against the grand black law, which rolled up the headstones but set no dam against the relentlessness of never and refused to light up the everlasting darkness."

"Everything that existed left behind traces of itself, and people then lived of their memories, just as we nowadays live by our capacity to forget, quickly and comprehensively."

"The emperor was an old man. He was the oldest emperor in the world. All around him Death was circling, circling and mowing. The entire field was already cleared, and only the emperor, like a forgotten silver stalk, still stood and waited. For many years his bright hard eyes had been peering, lost, into a lost distance... He saw the sun going down on his empire, but he said nothing. He knew he would die before it set. At times he feigned ignorance and was delighted when someone gave him a long-winded explanation about things he knew thoroughly... His eyes, as usual, peered into the distance, where the edges of eternity were already surfacing."

"The tiny church tower, the finger of the village, pointed up into the blue sky. It was a quiet afternoon. The roosters crowed sleepily. The mosquitoes hummed and danced up and down the length of the main street. "

"Fires surrounded thecorpses dangling from trees, and the leaves were already crackling, and the fire was more powerful than the steady, widespread gray drizzle heralding the bloody autumn. The old bark of ancient trees slowly charred, tiny, silvery, swelling sparks crept up along the fissures like fiery worms, reaching the foliage, and the green leaves curled, turned red, then black, then gray; the ropes broke, and the corpses plunged to the ground, their faces black, their bodies unscathed."

"And he played a game against himself, smirking, occasionally looking at the empty chair across the table, his ears filled with the gentle noise of the autumn rain, which was still running tirelessly down the window panes."