* * * * *
A very sensible, clever young woman; when she was bathing, he noticed
that she had a narrow pelvis and pitifully thin hips--and he got to
hate her.
* * * * *
A clock. Yegor the locksmith's clock at one time loses and at another
gains exactly as if to spite him; deliberately it is now at twelve and
then quite suddenly at eight. It does it out of animosity as though
the devil were in it. The locksmith tries to find out the cause, and
once he plunges it in holy water.
* * * * *
Formerly the heroes in novels and stories (e.g. Petchorin, Onyeguin)
were twenty years old, but now one cannot have a hero under thirty to
thirty-five years. The same will soon happen with heroines.
* * * * *
N. is the son of a famous father; he is very nice, but, whatever he
does, every one says: "That is very well, but it is nothing to the
father." Once he gave a recitation at an evening party; all the
performers had a success, but of him they said: "That is very well,
but still it is nothing to the father." He went home and got into bed
and, looking at his father's portrait, shook his fist at him.
* * * * *
We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be
happy, and posterity will say as usual: "In the past it used to be
better, the present is worse than the past."
* * * * *
My motto: I don't want anything.
* * * * *
When a decent working-man takes himself and his work critically,
people call him grumbler, idler, bore; but when an idle scoundrel
shouts that it is necessary to work, he is applauded.
* * * * *
When a woman destroys things like a man, people think it natural and
everybody understands it; but when like a man, she wishes or tries to
create, people think it unnatural and cannot reconcile themselves to
it.
* * * * *
When I married, I became an old woman.
* * * * *
He looked down on the world from the height of his baseness.
* * * * *
"Your fiancée is very pretty." "To me all women are alike."
* * * * *
He dreamt of winning three hundred thousand in lottery, twice in
succession, because three hundred thousand would not be enough for
him.
* * * * *
N., a retired Councillor of State, lives in the country; he is
sixty-six. He is educated, liberal-minded, reads, likes an argument.
He learns from his guests that the new coroner Z. walks about with a
slipper on one foot and a boot on the other, and lives with another
man's wife. N. thinks all the time of Z.; he does nothing but talk
about him, how he walks about in one slipper and lives with another
man's wife; he talks of nothing else; at last he goes to sleep with
his own wife (he has not slept with her for the last eight years), he
is agitated and the whole time talks about Z. Finally he has a stroke,
his arm and leg are paralyzed--and all this from agitation about Z.
The doctor comes. With him too N. talks about Z. The doctor says that
he knows Z., that Z. now wears two boots, his leg being well, and that
he has married the lady.
* * * * *
I hope that in the next world I shall be able to look back at this
life and say: "Those were beautiful dreams...."
* * * * *
The squire N., looking at the undergraduate and the young girl,
the children of his steward Z.: "I am sure Z. steals from me, lives
grandly on stolen money, the undergraduate and the girl know it or
ought to know it; why then do they look so decent?"
* * * * *
She is fond of the word "compromise," and often uses it; "I am
incapable of compromise...." "A board which has the shape of a
parallelepiped."
* * * * *
The hereditary honorable citizen Oziaboushkin always tries to make out
that his ancestors had the right to the title of Count.
* * * * *
"He is a perfect dab at it." "O, O, don't use that expression; my
mother is very particular."
* * * * *
I have just married my third husband ... the name of the first
was Ivan Makarivitch ... of the second Peter ... Peter ... I have
forgotten.
* * * * *
The writer Gvozdikov thinks that he is very famous, that every one
knows him. He arrives at S., meets an officer who shakes his hand for
a long time, looking with rapture into his face. G. is glad, he
too shakes hands warmly.... At last the officer: "And how is your
orchestra? Aren't you the conductor?"
* * * * *
Morning; M.'s mustaches are in curl papers.
* * * * *
And it seemed to him that he was highly respected and valued
everywhere, anywhere, even in railway buffets, and so he always ate
with a smile on his face.
* * * * *
The birds sing, and already it begins to seem to him that they do not
sing, but whine.
* * * * *
N., father of a family, listens to his son reading aloud J.J. Rousseau
to the family, and thinks: "Well, at any rate, J.J. Rousseau had no
gold medal on his breast, but I have one."
* * * * *
N. has a spree with his step-son, an undergraduate, and they go to a
brothel. In the morning the undergraduate is going away, his leave is
up; N. sees him off. The undergraduate reads him a sermon on their
bad behavior; they quarrel. N: "As your father, I curse you."--"And I
curse you."
* * * * *
A doctor is called in, but a nurse sent for.
* * * * *
N.N.V. never agrees with anyone: "Yes, the ceiling is white, that
can be admitted; but white, as far as is known, consists of the seven
colors of the spectrum, and it is quite possible that in this case
one of the colors is darker or brighter than is necessary for the
production of pure white; I had rather think a bit before saying that
the ceiling is white."
* * * * *
He holds himself exactly as though he were an icon.
* * * * *
"Are you in love?"--"There's a little bit of that in it."
* * * * *