(December 11, 2013 at 2:38 pm)DOS Wrote:(December 11, 2013 at 2:22 pm)LostLocke Wrote: That's called an accident.
Accidents happen. So what?
Berlioz listened with great attention to the unpleasant story about the cancer and the tram-car, and certain alarming thoughts began to torment him. 'He's not a foreigner... He's not a foreigner...' he thought, 'he's a most peculiar specimen ...but, excuse me, who is he then? ...'
You'd like to smoke, I see?' the stranger addressed Homeless unexpectedly. "Which kind do
you prefer?'
'What, have you got several?' the poet, who had run out of cigarettes, asked glumly.
'Which do you prefer?' the stranger repeated.
'Okay - Our Brand,' Homeless replied spitefully.
The unknown man immediately took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered it to
Homeless:
'Our Brand...'
Editor and poet were both struck, not so much by Our Brand precisely turning up in the
cigarette case, as by the cigarette case itself. It was of huge size, made of pure gold, and, as it
was opened, a diamond triangle flashed white and blue fire on its lid. Here the writers thought differently. Berlioz: 'No, a foreigner!', and Homeless: 'Well, devil take
him, eh! ...'
The poet and the owner of the cigarette case lit up, but the non-smoker Berlioz declined.
'I must counter him like this,' Berlioz decided, 'yes, man is mortal, no one disputes that. But
the thing is...'
However, before he managed to utter these words, the foreigner spoke:
'Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's
sometimes unexpectedly mortal - there's the trick! And generally he's unable to say what he's
going to do this same evening.'
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
For fuck's sake, do you have an argument to make or do you get paid by the quote?