#platonov

Chagataev looked into his mother's eyes. They had grown pale and unaccustomed to the sight of him; their former dark shining strength no longer shone in them. Her thin, small face had become rapacious and angry from constant sorrow or from the effort of staying alive when there's nothing to live for and nothing to live on, when you must force your heart to work, when you must keep remembering your heart for it to go on beating. Otherwise death may come at any moment - if you forget or fail to understand that you are alive, that you must keep trying to want something and not overlook your own self.

You fancy yourself as a modern 'odd man out,' but you are neither particularly interesting nor original. [...] You are not looking for truth, or justice, you are just trying to amuse yourself.