when her husband is taken away, a woman turns to stone, into an automaton, into I don't know what, the frozen expression I must have had during those… - Nadezhda Mandelstam

man must answer for everything, particularly for his own soul.

Looking back on it, you may feel the path you have traveled was predetermined, but all along the way there were thousands of turnings and crossroads at which you could have chosen a completely different route. What we do with our lives is to some extent socially conditioned, since we all live at a particular moment in history, but the realm of inevitability is confined to our historical coordinates-beyond them everything depends on us. Freedom is boundless, and even the personality, one's own "self," is not something "given" once and for all; rather it takes shape in the course of one's life, depending to a large extent on the path one has chosen.

Now again we are not supposed to remember the past and think-let alone speak about it. (42: Last Letter)