Summary

The narrator starts to describe his experience at the Tolstoy Museum at the beginning of the story. He cried, and “paper streamers” (109) came out of his eyes. The Tolstoy museum contains about 30,000 paintings of author Leo Tolstoy. The narrator, among other visitors, had told the director of the museum to lower each of the Tolstoy paintings about six inches, and the narrator returned when the director obliged. The narrator believed that staring at somebody for too long was detrimental because one learns too much about that person. The narrator then recalled unusual facts about Tolstoy, such as Tolstoy’s tendency to bow “backward” (109) in order to be different from other people.

Pages 110 and 111 depict two identical portraits of Tolstoy’s face. However, the portrait on page 111 is accompanied a small figure of Napoleon looking up at the Tolstoy. Page 112 contains an image that...