* * * * *
The wife writes; the husband does not like her writing, but out of
delicacy says nothing and suffers all his life.
* * * * *
The fate of an actress: the beginning--a well-to-do family in Kertch,
life dull and empty; the stage, virtue, passionate love, then lovers;
the end: unsuccessful attempt to poison herself, then Kertch, life
at her fat uncle's house, the delight of being left alone. Experience
shows that an artist must dispense with wine, marriage, pregnancy. The
stage will become art only in the future, now it is only struggling
for the future.
* * * * *
(Angrily and sententiously) "Why don't you give me your wife's letters
to read? Aren't we relations?"
* * * * *
Lord, don't allow me to condemn or to speak of what I do not know or
do not understand.
* * * * *
Why do people describe only the weak, surly and frail as sinners? And
every one when he advises others to describe only the strong, healthy,
and interesting, means himself.
* * * * *
For a play: a character always lying without rhyme or reason.
* * * * *
Sexton Catacombov.
* * * * *
N.N., a littérateur, critic, plausible, self-confident, very liberal
minded, talks about poetry; condescendingly agrees with one--and I see
that he is a man absolutely without talent (I haven't read him). Some
one suggests going to Ai-Petri. I say that it is going to rain, but
we set out. The road is muddy, it rains; the critic sits next to me, I
feel his lack of talent. He is wooed and made a fuss of as if he were
a bishop. And when it cleared up, I went back on foot. How easily
people deceive themselves, how they love prophets and soothsayers;
what a herd it is! Another person went with us, a Councillor of State,
middle-aged, silent, because he thinks he is right and despises the
critic, because he too is without talent. A girl afraid to smile
because she is among clever people.
* * * * *
Alexey Ivanitch Prokhladitelny (refreshing) or Doushespasitelny
(soul-saving). A girl: "I would marry him, but am afraid of the
name--Madam Refreshing."
* * * * *
A dream of a keeper in the zoological gardens. He dreams that there
was presented to the Zoo first a marmot, then an emu, then a vulture,
then a she-goat, then another emu; the presentations are made without
end and the Zoo is crowded out--the keeper wakes up in horror wet with
perspiration.
* * * * *
"To harness slowly but drive rapidly is in the nature of this people,"
said Bismarck.
* * * * *
When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.
* * * * *
With insects, out of the caterpillar comes the butterfly; with
mankind it is the other way round, out of the butterfly comes the
caterpillar.[1]
[Footnote 1: There is a play on words here, the Russian word for
butterfly also means a woman.]
* * * * *
The dogs in the house became attached not to their masters who fed and
fondled them, but to the cook, a foreigner, who beat them.
* * * * *
Sophie was afraid that her dog might catch cold, because of the
draught.
* * * * *
The soil is so good, that, were you to plant a shaft, in a year's time
a cart would grow out of it.
* * * * *
X. and Z., very well educated and of radical views, married. In the
evening they talked together pleasantly, then quarreled, then came to
blows. In the morning both are ashamed and surprised, they think
that it must have been the result of some exceptional state of their
nerves. Next night again a quarrel and blows. And so every night until
at last they realize that they are not at all educated, but savage,
just like the majority of people.
* * * * *
A play: in order to avoid having visitors, Z. pretends to be a regular
tippler, although he drinks nothing.
* * * * *
When children appear on the scene, then we justify all our weaknesses,
our compromises, and our snobbery, by saying: "It's for the children's
sake."
* * * * *