The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

Love and Respect

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Can this be right? Does Tolstoy really mean this? The quote actually comes from a conversation in the novel, Anna Karenina. Was she right? Is respect a substitute for love? 


Since love is displayed in so many forms, every manifestation of love must be absent in order for respect to appear, if this were true. Respect would be a curios invention indeed, especially since respect has value. Wouldn’t it be correct to say that respect is actually a form of love? It’s been argued that love is private and respect is public. In the novel, the speaker depending on this, has lost in both arenas and is desperately grasping. So, not so great a sentiment, is it?


It would be correct to say that disrespect fills the empty place where love should be. Both are found in the context of relationships. Every display of disrespect spreads chaos, is without honor, careless, selfish, loveless. Love invents. Disrespect destroys. 


Tolstoy wasn’t wrong. Anna was.

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