* * * * *
N. has been for long in love with Z. who married X.; two years after
the marriage Z. comes to N., cries, wishes to tell him something; N.
expects to hear her complain against her husband; but it turns out
that Z. has come to tell of her love for K.
* * * * *
N. a well known lawyer in Moscow; Z., who like N. was born in
Taganrog, comes to Moscow and goes to see the celebrity; he is
received warmly, but he remembers the school to which they both went,
remembers how N. looked in his uniform, becomes agitated by envy, sees
that N.'s flat is in bad taste, that N. himself talks a great deal;
and he leaves disenchanted by envy and by the meanness which before he
did not even suspect was in him.
* * * * *
The title of a play: The Bat.
* * * * *
Everything which the old cannot enjoy is forbidden or considered
wrong.
* * * * *
When he was getting on in years, he married a very young girl, and so
she faded and withered away with him.
* * * * *
All his life he wrote about capitalism and millions, and he had never
had any money.
* * * * *
A young lady fell in love with a handsome constable.
* * * * *
N. was a very good, fashionable tailor; but he was spoiled and ruined
by trifles; at one time he made an overcoat without pockets, at
another a collar which was much too high.
* * * * *
A farce: Agent of freight transport company and of fire insurance
company.
* * * * *
Any one can write a play which might be produced.
* * * * *
A country house. Winter. N., ill, sits in his room. In the evening
there suddenly arrives from the railway station a stranger Z., a young
girl, who introduces herself and says that she has come to look after
the invalid. He is perplexed, frightened, he refuses; then Z. says
that at any rate she will stay the night. A day passes, two, and she
goes on living there. She has an unbearable temper, she poisons one's
existence.
* * * * *
A private room in a restaurant. A rich man Z., tying his napkin round
his neck, touching the sturgeon with his fork: "At least I'll have
a snack before I die"--and he has been saying this for a long time,
daily.
* * * * *
By his remarks on Strindberg and literature generally L.L. Tolstoi
reminds one very much of Madam Loukhmav.[1]
[Footnote 1: L.L. Tolstoi was Leo Nicolaievitch'a son, Madame Loukhmav
a tenth rate woman-writer.]
* * * * *
Diedlov, when he speaks of the Deputy Governor or the Governor,
becomes a romanticist, remembering "The Arrival of the Deputy
Governor" in the book _A Hundred Russian Writers_.
* * * * *
A play: the Bean of Life.
* * * * *
A vet. belongs to the stallion class of people.
* * * * *
Consultation.
* * * * *
The sun shines and in my soul is darkness.
* * * * *
In S. I made the acquaintance of the barrister Z.--a sort of Nika, The
Fair ... He has several children; with all of them he is magisterial,
gentle, kind, not a single rude word; I soon learn that he has another
family. Then he invites me to his daughter's wedding; he prays, makes
a genuflection, and says: "I still preserve religious feeling; I am
a believer." And when in his presence people speak of education, of
women, he has a naïve expression, exactly as if he did not understand.
When he makes a speech in Court, his face looks as if he were praying.
* * * * *
"Mammy, don't show yourself to the guests, you are very fat."
* * * * *
Love? In love? Never! I am a Government clerk.
* * * * *
He knows little, even as a babe who has not yet come out of his
mother's womb.
* * * * *
From childhood until extreme old age N. has had a passion for spying.
* * * * *
He uses clever words, that's all--philosophy ... equator ... (for a
play).
* * * * *
The stars have gone out long ago, but they still shine for the crowd.
* * * * *
As soon as he became a scholar, he began to expect honors.
* * * * *
He was a prompter, but got disgusted and gave it up; for about
fifteen years he did not go to the theatre; then he went and saw a
play, cried with emotion, felt sad, and, when his wife asked him on
his return how he liked the theatre, he answered: "I do not like it."
* * * * *
The parlormaid Nadya fell in love with an exterminator of bugs and
black beetles.
* * * * *
A Councillor of State; it came out after his death that, in order to
earn a rouble, he was employed at the theatre to bark like a dog; he
was poor.
* * * * *
You must have decent, well-dressed children, and your children too
must have a nice house and children, and their children again children
and nice houses; and what is it all for?--The devil knows.
* * * * *
Perkaturin.
* * * * *
Every day he forces himself to vomit--for the sake of his health, on
the advice of a friend.
* * * * *
A Government official began to live an original life; a very tall
chimney on his house, green trousers, blue waistcoat, a dyed dog,
dinner at midnight; after a week he gave it up.
* * * * *
Success has already given that man a lick with its tongue.
* * * * *
In the bill presented by the hotel-keeper: was among other things:
"Bugs--fifteen kopecks." Explanation.
* * * * *
"N. has fallen into poverty."--"What? I can't hear."--"I say N. has
fallen into poverty."--"What exactly do you say? I can't make out.
What N.?"--"The N. who married Z."--"Well, what of it?"--"I say we
ought to help him."--"Eh? What him? Why help? What do you mean?"--and
so on.
* * * * *
How pleasant to sit at home, when the rain is drumming on the roof,
and to feel that there are no heavy dull guests coming to one's house.
* * * * *
N. always even after five glasses of wine, takes valerian drops.
* * * * *
He lives with a parlormaid who respectfully calls him Your Honor.
* * * * *
I rented a country house for the summer; the owner, a very fat old
lady, lived in the lodge, I in the great house; her husband was dead
and so were all her children, she was left alone, very fat, the estate
sold for debt, her furniture old and in good taste; all day long she
reads letters which her husband and son had written to her. Yet she is
an optimist. When some one fell ill in my house, she smiled and said
again and again: "My dear, God will help."
* * * * *
N. and Z. are school friends, each seventeen or eighteen years old;
and suddenly N. learns that Z. is with child by N.'s father.
* * * * *
The priezt came ... zaint ... praize to thee, O Lord.
* * * * *
What empty words these discussions about the rights of women! If a dog
writes a work of talent, they will even accept the dog.
* * * * *
Hæmorrhage: "It's an abscess that's just burst inside you ... it's all
right, have some more vodka."
* * * * *
The intelligentsia are good for nothing, because they drink a lot of
tea, talk a lot in stuffy rooms, with empty bottles.
* * * * *
When she was young, she ran away with a doctor, a Jew, and had
a daughter by him; now she hates her past, hates the red-haired
daughter, and the father still loves her as well as the daughter, and
walks under her window, chubby and handsome.
* * * * *
He picked his teeth and put the toothpick back into the glass.
* * * * *
The husband and wife could not sleep; they began to discuss how bad
literature had become and how nice it would be to publish a magazine:
the idea carried them away; they lay awake silent for awhile. "Shall
we ask Boborykin to write?" he asked. "Certainly, do ask him." At five
in the morning he starts for his work at the depot; she sees him off
walking in the snow to the gate, shuts the gate after him.... "And
shall we ask Potapenko?" he asks, already outside the gate.
* * * * *
When he learnt that his father had been raised to the nobility he
began to sign himself Alexis.
* * * * *
Teacher: "'The collision of a train with human victims' ... that is
wrong ... it ought to be 'the collision of a train that resulted in
human victims' ... for the cause of the people on the line."
* * * * *
Title of play: Golden Rain.
* * * * *
There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the
non-existent, of the non-human.
* * * * *
A patriot: "And do you know that our Russian macaroni is better
than the Italian? I'll prove it to you. Once at Nice they brought me
sturgeon--do you know, I nearly cried." And the patriot did not see
that he was only gastronomically patriotic.
* * * * *