Once, Without Any Warning, Mandelstam Turned Up at the Merezhkovskys'

Once, without any warning, Mandelstam turned up at the Merezhkovskys'. Zinaida Gippius came out to him and said that if he wrote good poetry, she would be informed of it; then she would talk to him, but for the time being there was no point, since nothing ever came of anybody. Mandelstam heard her out in silence and left.

Soon afterwards Gippius read his poems and many times, through various people, urged him to come, but he dug in his heels and never did.

This did not prevent Gippius from pushing Mandelstam forward by every means. She wrote about him to Bryusov and to many others, and in her circle Mandelstam came to be called "Zinaida's little Yid".

From the memoirs of Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam

In short, a spoon is dear when dinner-time is near

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Once, Without Any Warning, Mandelstam Turned Up at the Merezhkovskys'

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s