The Beau­ties opens with a rec­ol­lec­tion set under the harsh sun of the Don region, where every­thing appears life­less except for a mem­o­ry the nar­ra­tor has nev­er for­got­ten. As a boy, he trav­eled with his grand­fa­ther and stopped in a qui­et Armen­ian vil­lage. Among the dusty paths and tired ani­mals, a strik­ing girl named Masha stood out like a vision. She did not speak much, nor did she try to attract atten­tion, yet her pres­ence made the world slow down. Her beau­ty stirred some­thing deep­er than admiration—it cre­at­ed a qui­et ache that lin­gered long after she was gone. The nar­ra­tor felt sad­ness with­out rea­son, as if some­thing per­fect had passed him by before he could name it. Though the stop in the vil­lage was brief, Masha remained etched in his mem­o­ry, not as a char­ac­ter, but as a moment when the dull­ness of the world was inter­rupt­ed by some­thing rare and pure.

Years lat­er, while rid­ing a train as a stu­dent, the nar­ra­tor wit­ness­es anoth­er fleet­ing encounter that reminds him of that long-ago day. At a small sta­tion, a girl stepped into view, draw­ing every gaze around her—not because she was per­fect­ly formed, but because she exud­ed a spir­it that made her unfor­get­table. She had life in her step and a bright­ness that made the air feel lighter, even as she said noth­ing. The peo­ple on the plat­form fell into silence, as if her mere pres­ence had momen­tar­i­ly lift­ed them from their thoughts. For the nar­ra­tor, it brought back that same inex­plic­a­ble ache, the real­iza­tion that beau­ty can exist so briefly it nev­er has time to grow famil­iar. Once the train moved, the spell broke, but the feel­ing clung to him like a scent on wind­blown clothes. That girl, like Masha, rep­re­sent­ed some­thing almost holy in its sim­plic­i­ty.

In both mem­o­ries, the nar­ra­tor isn’t describ­ing beau­ty as some­thing to be pos­sessed or won; it is more like a pass­ing melody that changes the mood of every­thing for a moment. There is sad­ness in such beauty—not because it is sor­row­ful, but because it can­not last. We often for­get that beau­ty is most pow­er­ful not when it stays, but when it van­ish­es before we can hold onto it. These two girls, unknown to each oth­er and like­ly unaware of the impact they had, are remem­bered not for any action, but sim­ply for being. Their silence, their grace, and their tim­ing turned ordi­nary set­tings into some­thing worth remem­ber­ing for­ev­er. In those short-lived encoun­ters, beau­ty became time­less pre­cise­ly because it was momen­tary.

What the nar­ra­tor expe­ri­ences is a uni­ver­sal human feel­ing: the sur­prise of unex­pect­ed beau­ty and the ache of know­ing it can’t be repeat­ed. These moments remind us that life’s most stir­ring expe­ri­ences often appear with­out warn­ing, and they do not ask for attention—they sim­ply arrive, touch us, and van­ish. In both cas­es, the beau­ty encoun­tered wasn’t loud or adorned. It had no inten­tion. It only exist­ed and was seen, and in being seen, it changed the per­son who noticed it. Such is the nature of true beauty—it exists for its own sake, and its pow­er lies in its tran­sience. These mem­o­ries are not sto­ries of love, but of awe.

It’s also worth not­ing how the narrator’s sur­round­ings play a role in enhanc­ing the emo­tion. In the heat and silence of the vil­lage or the bus­tle of a train sta­tion, beau­ty breaks through like sun­light through storm clouds. The con­trast sharp­ens the emo­tion­al impact, mak­ing the moment more vivid. In our lives, too, beau­ty often appears in the mundane—on crowd­ed streets, in pass­ing glances, in strangers we’ll nev­er see again. This kind of beau­ty teach­es us to pay atten­tion, to look beyond the sur­face of ordi­nary moments. It calls us to appre­ci­ate the fleet­ing nature of things, not with despair, but with ten­der­ness. We may not remem­ber the dates or the names, but we remem­ber the feel­ing, and that is enough.

Ulti­mate­ly, the nar­ra­tor’s reflec­tion is not about the girls them­selves, but about what they stirred in him—a deep, almost spir­i­tu­al recog­ni­tion of some­thing pure and unreach­able. These are not tales of romance, but qui­et moments of rev­e­la­tion. We are remind­ed that beau­ty is not some­thing that must be held to be real. It only needs to be seen, even for a sec­ond, to change the course of a mem­o­ry, and some­times, a life. In a world heavy with noise and dis­trac­tion, such moments are rare gifts. And when they arrive, we do not for­get them, even when we for­get every­thing else.