The system required the consent of everyone, even if they consented by doing nothing.

Leo’s very existence had been a kind of perpetual punishment for Vasili. So, then, why did he miss him?

A person can always be sure of what they don’t know. They might not be sure of what they know.

What is your name?

By his count there were forty-three in total. Nesterov had reached over, taken another pin from the box, and stuck it into the center of Moscow, making Arkady child 44.

The price of this story was the audience’s innocence.

Let me quickly remind you that the allegation of being mentally incapable is a tried and tested method of silencing women dating back hundreds of years, a weapon to discredit us when we fought against abuses and stood up to authority.

Standing at the point where these photographs were taken, you’re immersed in the most unbelievable quiet. It’s like being at the bottom of the sea except instead of a rusted shipwreck there’s an ancient farmhouse. Even the thoughts in my head sounded loud, and sometimes I found my heart beating hard for no reason except as a reaction against the silence.

I’d mistaken familiarity for insight and equated hours spent together as a measure of understanding.

Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he’d been idealistically cruel? One was an empty, indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary.