The Pleasure of Seeing Others Brought Down “If we had no faults, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others,” La Rochefoucauld writes in one of his maxims. As so often with him, the sting is hidden in a word that is easy to pass over. In this case, that word…

I stepped into the luxurious hall with – thankfully already familiar – the sensation that I had the privilege of touching something truly cultivated, civilization in its least pretentious guise, the elevating voice of literature, that sort of thing. I’m not joking, nor do I…

I am the happiest man in the world. I know I’m talking nonsense – but I don’t care, not as long as my Eva is beside me. I’ve got the most wonderful woman, earned her with sweat and hardship, so don’t tell me to knock on wood. When a man has been through stories like mine, he…

A Week in Paradise Shame rides on the edge of the familiar The sky above Berlin glows as if polished by careful German hands... Sounds flat, Vladko thinks. Pure kitsch. A sky is a sky—nowhere does it say Made in Germany. He gazes again at the tangle of steel scaffolding,…