"Let's rest in the sunshine for a while. Maybe tonight they'll lock us up in the cellar of the Security building. Keep that in mind and you'll savour this sunshine all the more. I'm teaching you wisdom! One day you'll lie down on a cot in a disheartening darkness. Then remember the sunshine of this moment. The greatest joy on earth, love apart, is sunshine in your veins."
"And thought?" asked Rodion. "Thought?"
"Ah! Right now it's something of a midnight sun piercing the skull. Glacial. What's to be done if it's midnight in the century?"
"Midnight's where we have to live then," said Rodion with an odd elation.
—Victor Serge, Midnight in the Century