Andrei Bely Quotes & Sayings

Adam Antonovich's father was a tubby tyrant with a triple chin and chinks where his eyes should have been. All his life he had amassed money. In old age he had exchanged it for space; his estates grew, grew and swelled.

("Adam") — Andrei Bely

Once [the Senator's] brain has come into play with the mysterious stranger, that stranger exists, really does exist: he will not disappear from the Petersburg prospects while a senator with such thoughts exists, because thought, too, exists.

And so let our stranger be a real live stranger! And let my stranger's two shadows be real live shadows!

Those dark shadows will follow, they will follow on the stranger's heels, in the same way as the stranger himself will directly follow the senator; the aged senator will pursue you, he will pursue you, too, reader, in his black carriage: and from this day forth you will never forget him! — Andrei Bely

People as such do not exist: they are all 'things conceived — Andrei Bely

Here you will find marvelous moustaches, which neither pen nor brush could depict. To which the best part of a lifetime has been devoted, objects of long vigils by day and midnight; moustaches on which the most ravishing ointments have been poured, which have been anointed with the most precious pomades and which are the envy of passerby.. — Andrei Bely

Adam Antonovich went out of the annex which as a child he had called the 'world.' Through the glass he shouted jokingly to his servant 'You are still in the "world" but I'm not in the world, I'm in Russia.'

The hunchbacked plains spread out on every side, Russian plains, eaten away by ravines, ancient, native, all - all just the same. 'With the mind, Russia cannot be embraced; she is a special case, one can only believe in Russia,' he thought...

("Adam") — Andrei Bely

Tahtahta-ha-ha' clattered the wheels. A lamp outside the window nodded to him. Another. A third. The lamps ceased to wink. Night without winking clung to the windows.

("Adam") — Andrei Bely

He returned to his seat and sat down; the road is so long, so long; he had to get through these spaces where stations clustered about the track amidst the black night like some black coffin set with candles. He thought that minute was flying after minute, mile after mile, everything was moving - even he was moving - but to where?

("Adam") — Andrei Bely

Son: Father, you are my father. You sired me. I have sired no one because I left the primordial. I left you, I studied, I suffered, and my visions were pure. Before me, my father, new horizons were opened.

Father: Yes, I am your father. I sired you and nowhere did I go. Where I was in the beginning, there I remained. I dwell in the old home, my estate is as it was. I spawned, I lived with your mother. Then I lived with peasant women and girls, spawning. I surrounded myself with chickens, roosters, turkeys. My poultry lay dozens of eggs a day. But I studied nothing, never did I suffer. My horizons remain the same, oh just the same. These spaces, ancient, veritably Russian, assembled around us are all - all just the same.

("Adam") — Andrei Bely