Gratitude

"There once was, in a provincial town, a very kind German language teacher, Fedor Fedorovich Angst. Angst was forty-seven and he was unmarried. Everyone knows that Germans are cautious and will save themselves for a rainy day sooner than anyone else. If not for the slight graying in his light-brown hair, many would have given him only thirty-seven. But his outward look was decrepit compared to his heart. Such a heart is unlikely to be kept often—both by a quick Frenchman and by an Italian, they say, who has fire burning in his veins. I myself haven’t seen Italians…"