Vladimir Shtykov, a young but already successful Riga playwright, was a proponent of direct contact with the audience. That’s why, having once escaped to Moscow for a couple of months, he didn’t inform the management of the theater where his play was performing of his arrival. Trying to maintain complete anonymity, he refused a room at the Intourist hotel, and, staying with his wife’s relatives, people far removed from the arts, he attended the theater like a mere common man.

There are eyeballs watching me in my office. Many eyeballs, multitudes of eyeballs, eyeballs that blink and eye sockets that don’t. All attached to faceless creatures with spiderwebbed black lashes that watch and wait and watch some more. They never show themselves to me where I can see them in the clarity of daylight, but I can always catch them in the corner of my eye. They always watch. As long as I’ve been awake, I’ve seen them watching me. They’ve broken both my legs so

You must understand - it wasn't my fault. If only you would let me explain, then I can prove to you that I had no part in this. And even if I did, could you really blame me? I would say, completely honestly, that I had played my part well. What? No, that wasn't a confession. All I'm saying is, isn't it beautiful, what we have become? A million feelings knotted together into one, interlinked like daisy chains, that we tirelessly try to condense into words. Horrible. I don't