[Footnote 1: A cold dish composed of cider and hash.]
* * * * *
"If you lose this talisman," said grandmother, "you will die." And
suddenly I lost it, tortured myself, was afraid that I would die. And
now, imagine, a miracle happened: I found it and continued to live.
* * * * *
Everybody goes to the theatre to see my play, to learn something
instantly from it, to make some sort of profit, and I tell you: I have
not the time to bother about that canaille.
* * * * *
The people hate and despise everything new and useful; when there was
cholera, they hated and killed the doctors and they love vodka; by the
people's love or hatred one can estimate the value of what they love
or hate.
* * * * *
Looking out of the window at the corpse which is being borne to the
cemetery: "You are dead, you are being carried to the cemetery, and I
will go and have my breakfast."
* * * * *
A Tchech Vtitchka.
* * * * *
A man, forty years old, married a girl of twenty-two who read only the
very latest writers, wore green ribbons, slept on yellow pillows, and
believed in her taste and her opinions as if they were law; she is
nice, not silly, and gentle, but he separates from her.
* * * * *
When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole
ocean--that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink
altogether two glasses--that is science.
* * * * *
For a farce: Fildekosov, Poprygunov.
* * * * *
In former times a nice man, with principles, who wanted to be
respected, would try to become a general or priest, but now he goes in
for being a writer, professor....
* * * * *
There is nothing which history will not justify.
* * * * *