* * * * *
A storm at sea. Lawyers ought to regard it as a crime.
* * * * *
X. went to stay with his friend in the country. The place was
magnificent, but the servants treated him badly, he was uncomfortable,
although his friend considered him a big man. The bed was hard, he was
not provided with a night shirt and he felt ashamed to ask for one.
* * * * *
At a rehearsal. The wife:
"How does that melody in Pagliacci go? Whistle it."
"One must not whistle on the stage; the stage is a temple."
* * * * *
He died from fear of cholera.
* * * * *
As like as a nail is to a requiem.
* * * * *
A conversation on another planet about the earth a thousand years
hence. "Do you remember that white tree?"
* * * * *
Anakhthema!
* * * * *
Zigzagovsky, Oslizin, Svintchulka, Derbaliguin.
* * * * *
A woman with money, the money hidden everywhere, in her bosom and
between her legs....
* * * * *
All that procedure.
* * * * *
Treat your dismissal as you would an atmospheric phenomenon.
* * * * *
A conversation at a conference of doctors. First doctor: "All diseases
can be cured by salt." Second doctor, military: "Every disease can
be cured by prescribing no salt." The first points to his wife, the
second to his daughter.
* * * * *
The mother has ideals, the father too; they delivered lectures; they
built schools, museums, etc. They grow rich. And their children are
most ordinary; spend money, gamble on the Stock Exchange.
* * * * *
N. married a German when she was seventeen. He took her to live in
Berlin. At forty she became a widow and by that time spoke Russian
badly and German badly.
* * * * *
The husband and wife loved having visitors, because, when there were
no visitors they quarreled.
* * * * *
It is an absurdity! It is an anachronism!
* * * * *
"Shut the window! You are perspiring! Put on an overcoat! Put on
goloshes!"
* * * * *
If you wish to have little spare time, do nothing.
* * * * *
On a Sunday morning in summer is heard the rumble of a
carriage--people driving to mass.
* * * * *
For the first time in her life a man kissed her hand; it was too much
for her, it turned her head.
* * * * *
What wonderful names: the little tears of Our Lady, warbler,
crows-eyes.[1]
[Footnote 1: The names of flowers.]
* * * * *
A government forest officer with shoulder straps, who has never seen a
forest.
* * * * *
A gentleman owns a villa near Mentone; he bought it out of the
proceeds of the sale of his estate in the Tula province. I saw him in
Kharkhov to which he had come on business; he gambled away the villa
at cards and became a railway clerk; after that he died.
* * * * *
At supper he noticed a pretty woman and choked; a little later he
caught sight of another pretty woman and choked again, so that he did
not eat his supper--there were a lot of pretty women.
* * * * *
A doctor, recently qualified, supervises the food in a restaurant.
"The food is tinder the special supervision of a doctor." He copies
out the chemical composition of the mineral water; the students
believe him--and all is well.
* * * * *
He did not eat, he partook of food.
* * * * *
A man, married to an actress, during a performance of a play in which
his wife was acting, sat in a box, with beaming face, and from time to
time got up and bowed to the audience.
* * * * *
Dinner at Count O.D.'s. Fat lazy footmen; tasteless cutlets; a feeling
that a lot of money is being spent, that the situation is hopeless,
and that it is impossible to change the course of things.
* * * * *
A district doctor: "What other damned creature but a doctor would have
to go out in such weather?"--he is proud of it, grumbles about it to
every one, and is proud to think that his work is so troublesome; he
does not drink and often sends articles to medical journals that do
not publish them.
* * * * *
When N. married her husband, he was junior Public Prosecutor; he
became judge of the High Court and then judge of the Court of Appeals;
he is an average uninteresting man. N. loves her husband very much.
She loves him to the grave, writes him meek and touching letters when
she hears of his unfaithfulness, and dies with a touching expression
of love on her lips. Evidently she loved, not her husband, but some
one else, superior, beautiful, non-existent, and she lavished that
love upon her husband. And after her death footsteps could be heard in
her house.
* * * * *
They are members of a temperance society and now and again take a
glass of wine.
* * * * *
They say: "In the long run truth will triumph;" but it is untrue.
* * * * *
A clever man says: "This is a lie, but since the people can not do
without the lie, since it has the sanction of history, it is dangerous
to root it out all at once; let it go on for the time being but with
certain corrections." But the genius says: "This is a lie, therefore
it must not exist."
* * * * *
Marie Ivanovna Kladovaya.
* * * * *
A schoolboy with mustaches, in order to show off, limps with one leg.
* * * * *
A writer of no talent, who has been writing for a long time, with his
air of importance reminds one of a high priest.
* * * * *
Mr. N. and Miss Z. in the city of X. Both clever, educated, of radical
views, and both working for the good of their fellow men, but both
hardly know each other and in conversation always rail at each other
in order to please the stupid and coarse crowd.
* * * * *
He flourished his hand as if he were going to seize him by the hair
and said: "You won't escape by that there trick."
* * * * *
N. has never been in the country and thinks that in the winter country
people use skis. "How I would enjoy ski-ing now!"
* * * * *
Madam N., who sells herself, says to each man who has her: "I love you
because you are not like the rest."
* * * * *
An intellectual woman, or rather a woman who belongs to an
intellectual circle, excels in deceit.
* * * * *
N. struggled all his life investigating a disease and studying its
bacilli; he devoted his whole life to the struggle, expended on it all
his powers, and suddenly just before his death it turned out that the
disease is not in the least infectious or dangerous.
* * * * *
A theatrical manager, lying in bed, read a new play. He read three or
four pages and then in irritation threw the play on to the floor,
put out the candle, and drew the bedclothes over him; a little later,
after thinking over it, he took the play up again and began to read
it; then, getting angry with the uninspired tedious work, he again
threw it on the floor and put out the candle. A little later he once
more took up the play and read it, then he produced it and it was a
failure.
* * * * *