* * * * *
N. goes to X. every day, talks to him, and shows real sympathy in his
grief; suddenly X. leaves his house, where he was so comfortable. N.
asks X.'s mother why he went away. She answers: "Because you came to
see him every day."
* * * * *
It was such a romantic wedding, and later--what fools! what babies!
* * * * *
Love. Either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something
which once has been immense, or it is a particle of what will in
the future develop into something immense; but in the present it is
unsatisfying, it gives much less than one expects.
* * * * *
A very intellectual man all his life tells lies about hypnotism,
spiritualism--and people believe him; yet he is quite a nice man.
* * * * *
In Act I, X., a respectable man, borrows a hundred roubles from N.,
and in the course of all four acts he does not pay it back.
* * * * *
A grandmother has six sons and three daughters, and best of all she
loves the failure, who drinks and has been in prison.
* * * * *
N., the manager of a factory, rich, with a wife and children, happy,
has written "An investigation into the mineral spring at X." He was
much praised for it and was invited to join the staff of a newspaper;
he gave up his post, went to Petersburg, divorced his wife, spent his
money--and went to the dogs.
* * * * *
(Looking at a photograph album): "Whose ugly face is that?"
"That's my uncle."
* * * * *
Alas, what is terrible is not the skeletons, but the fact that I am no
longer terrified by them.
* * * * *
A boy of good family, capricious, full of mischief, obstinate, wore
out his whole family. The father, an official who played the piano,
got to hate him, took him into a corner of the garden, flogged him
with considerable pleasure, and then felt disgusted with himself. The
son has grown up and is an officer.
* * * * *
N. courted Z. for a long time. She was very religious, and, when he
proposed to her, she put a dried flower, which he had once given to
her, into her prayer-book.
* * * * *