The little scene where Pavel examines the bad photographs of Fenitchka and and Nikolai has a very ‘modern’ feel to it; it’s very unlike anything I read so far from Tolstoy, Gogol, or Dostoyevsky.

There’s no explanation given to us what these photos ‘mean’ of ‘an eyeless face wearing a forced smile, in a dingy frame’. We will have to make it out ourselves, we’ll have to see better, see everyone better; like Pavel.