Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable.

My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it's dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can't live without it.

To advise is not to compel.

Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.

You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.

But if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: "My work is literature."

A fiancé is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.