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diff --git a/old/12494.txt b/old/12494.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3030047 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12494.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4643 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Note-Book of Anton Chekhov, by Anton +Pavlovich Chekhov, Translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Note-Book of Anton Chekhov + +Author: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov + +Release Date: June 2, 2004 [eBook #12494] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTE-BOOK OF ANTON CHEKHOV*** + + +E-text prepared by Leah Moser and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreading Team from images provided by the Million Book Project + + + +NOTE-BOOK OF ANTON CHEKHOV + +Translated by S. S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF + +1921 + + + + + + + +This volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works which +Anton Chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methods +of his artistic production. Among his papers was found a series of +sheets in a special cover with the inscription: "Themes, thoughts, +notes, and fragments." Madame L.O. Knipper-Chekhov, Chekhov's wife, +also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themes +for his future work, quotations which he liked, etc. If he used any +material, he used to strike it out in the note-book. The significance +which Chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the fact +that he recopied most of it into a special copy book. + + + + +ANTON CHEKHOV'S DIARY. + +1896 + + +My neighbor V.N.S. told me that his uncle Fet-Shenshin, the famous +poet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably let +down the window of his carriage and spit at the University. He would +expectorate and spit: Bah! His coachman got so used to this that every +time he drove past the University, he would stop. + +In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin. I often +saw Potapenko. Met Korolenko. I often went to the Maly Theatre. +As Alexander [Chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G. +simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the _Novoye +Vremya_ and said to me indignantly: "Why do you set the old man +(i.e. Souvorin) against Burenin?" I have never spoken ill of the +contributors to the _Novoye Vremya_ in Souvorin's presence, although I +have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them. + +In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N. Tolstoi. He +was irritated, made stinging remarks about the _decadents_, and for +an hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talked +nonsense all the time. Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi's daughters] laid +out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out; +I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that +annoyed them. By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack. +Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to +their father is touching. The countess denounced the painter Ge all +the evening. She too was irritated. + +May 5. The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has +painted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N. +He is director of the Foreign Department ... editor of a magazine ... +and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusually +stupid person and a reptile. He said: "There's nothing more pernicious +on earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently, +the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free +of charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants with +exasperation and loathing. + +June 1. I was at the Vagankov Cemetery and saw the graves there of +the victims of the Khodinka. [During the coronation of Nicholas II +in Moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the Khodinka +Fields.] I. Pavlovsky, the Paris correspondent of the _Novoye Vremya_, +came with me to Melikhovo. + +August 4. Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh, +Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an +icon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made a +speech. + +N. stayed with me from the 15th to the 18th August. He has been +forbidden [by the authorities] to publish anything: he speaks +contemptuously now of the younger G., who said to the new Chief of +the Central Press Bureau that he was not going to sacrifice his weekly +_Nedelya_ for N.'s sake and that "We have always anticipated the +wishes of the Censorship." In fine weather N. walks in goloshes, and +carries an umbrella, so as not to die of sunstroke; he is afraid to +wash in cold water, and complains of palpitations of the heart. From +me he went on to L.N. Tolstoi. + +I left Taganrog on August 24. In Rostov I had supper with a +school-friend, L. Volkenstein, the barrister, who has already a +house in town and a villa in Kislovodsk [in the Caucasus]. I was in +Nakhichevan--what a change! All the streets are lit by electric light. +In Kislovodsk, at the funeral of General Safonov, I met A.I. Tchouprov +[a famous economist], later I met A.N. Vesselovsky [litterateur] in +the park. On the 28th I went on a hunting party with Baron Steingel, +passed the night in Bermamut. It was cold with a violent wind. + +2 September in Novorissisk. Steamer _Alexander II_. On the 3rd I +arrived at Feodossia and stopped with Souvorin. I saw I.K. Aivasovsky +[famous painter] who said to me: "You no longer come to see me, an old +man." In his opinion I ought to have paid him a visit. On the 16th in +Kharkov, I was in the theatre at the performance of "The Dangers of +Intelligence." 17th at home: wonderful weather. + +Vladimir Sloviov [famous philosopher] told me that he always carried +an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,--in his opinion, it is a radical +cure for piles. + +October 17. Performance of my "Seagull" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. +It was not a success. + +29th. I was at a meeting of the Zemstvo Council at Sezpukhovo. + +On the 10th November I had a letter from A.F. Koni who says he liked +my "Seagull" very much. + +November 26th. A fire broke out in our house. Count S.I. Shakhovsky +helped to put it out. When it was over, Sh. related that once, when +a fire broke out in his house at night, he lifted a tank of water +weighing 4-1/2 cwt. and poured the water on the flames. + +December 4. For the performance [of the "Seagull"] on the 17th October +see "Theatral," No. 95, page 75. It is true that I fled from the +theatre, but only when the play was over. In L.'s dressing-room during +two or three acts. During the intervals there came to her officials of +the State Theatres in uniform, wearing their orders, P.--with a Star; +a handsome young official of the Department of the State Police also +came to her. If a man takes up work which is alien to him, art for +instance, then, since it is impossible for him to become an artist, he +becomes an official. What a lot of people thus play the parasite round +science, the theatre, the painting,--by putting on a uniform! Likewise +the man to whom life is alien, who is incapable of living, nothing +else remains for him, but to become an official. The fat actresses, +who were in the dressing-room, made themselves pleasant to the +officials--respectfully and flatteringly. (L. expressed her delight +that P., so young, had already got the Star.) They were old, +respectable house-keepers, serf-women, whom the masters honored with +their presence. + +December 21. Levitan suffers from dilation of the aorta. He carries +clay on his chest. He has superb studies for pictures, and a +passionate thirst for life. + +December 31. P.I. Seryogin, the landscape painter, came. + + +1897. + +From January 10 to February 3 busy with the census. I am enumerator +of the 16th district, and have to instruct the other (fifteen) +enumerators of our Bavykin Section. They all work superbly, except +the priest of the Starospassky parish and the Government official, +appointed to the Zemstvo, G., (who is in charge of the census +district); he is away nearly all the time in Serpukhovo, spends every +evening at the Club and keeps on wiring that he is not well. All the +rest of the Government officials of our district are also said to do +nothing. + +With such critics as we have, authors like N.S. Lyeskov and S.V. +Maximov cannot be a success. + +Between "there is a God" and "there is no God" lies a whole vast +tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian +knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between +them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or +very little. + +The ease with which Jews change their religion is justified by many on +the ground of indifference. But this is not a justification. One has +to respect even one's indifference, and not change it for anything, +since indifference in a decent man is also a religion. + +February 13. Dinner at Mme. Morosov's. Tchouprov, Sololevsky, +Blaramberg, Sablin and myself were present. + +February 15. Pancakes at Soldatienkov's [a Moscow publisher]. Only +Golziev [editor of _Russian Thought_] and myself were present. Many +fine pictures, nearly all badly hung. After the pancakes we drove to +Levitan, from whom Soldatienkov bought a picture and two studies for +1,100 roubles. Met Polyenov [famous painter]. In the evening I was +at professor Ostroumov's; he says that Levitan "can't help dying." O. +himself is ill and obviously frightened. + +February 16. Several of us met in the evening in the offices of +_Russian Thought_ to discuss the People's Theatre. Every one liked +Shekhtel's plan. + +February 19. Dinner at the "Continental" to commemorate the +great reform [the abolition of the serfdom in 1861]. Tedious and +incongruous. To dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver +speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people, +freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round +your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the +street, in the bitter cold--that is lying to the Holy Ghost. + +February 22. I went to Serpukhovo to an amateur performance in aid of +the school at Novossiolki. As far as Zarizin I was accompanied by ... a +little queen in exile,--an actress who imagines herself great; +uneducated and a bit vulgar. + +From March 25 till April 10 I was laid up in Ostroumov's clinic. +Haemorrhage. Creaking, moisture in the apices of both my lungs; +congestion in the apex of the right. On March 28 L.N. Tolstoi came +to see me. We spoke of immortality. I told him the gist of Nossilov's +story "The Theatre of the Voguls," and he evidently listened with +great pleasure. + +May 1. N. arrived. He is always thanking you for tea and dinner, +apologizing, afraid of being late for the train; he talks a great +deal, keeps mentioning his wife, like Gogol's Mijniev, pushes the +proofs of his play over to you, first one sheet then another, giggles, +attacks Menshikov, whom Tolstoi has "swallowed"; assures you that he +would shoot Stassiulevitch, if the latter were to show himself at a +review, as President of the Russian Republic; giggles again, wets his +mustaches with the soup, eats hardly anything, and yet is quite a nice +man after all. + +May 4. The monks from the monastery paid us a visit. Dasha +Moussin-Poushkin, the wife of the engineer Gliebov, who has been +killed hunting, was there. She sang a great deal. + +May 24. I was present at the examination of two schools in Tchirkov. +[The Tchirkov and Mikhailovo schools.] + +July 13. Opening of the school at Novossiolki which I have had built. +The peasants gave me an icon with an inscription. The Zemstvo people +were absent. + +Braz [painter] does my portrait (for the Tretiakov Gallery). Two +sittings a day. + +July 22. I received a medal for my work on the census. + +July 23. In Petersburg. Stopped at Souvorin's, in the drawing-room. +Met VI. T.... who complained of his hysteria and praised his own +books. I saw P. Gnyeditch and E. Karpov, who imitated Leykin showing +off as a Spanish grandee. + +July 27. At Leykin's at Ivanovsk. 28th in Moscow. In the editorial +offices of _Russian Thought_, bugs in the sofa. + +September 4. Arrived in Paris. "Moulin Rouge," danse du ventre, Cafe +du Neon with Coffins, Cafe du Ciel, etc. + +September 8. In Biarritz. V.M. Sobolevsky and Mme. V.A. Morosov are +here. Every Russian in Biarritz complains of the number of Russians +here. + +September 14. Bayonne. Grande course landoise. Bull-fight. + +September 22. From Biarritz to Nice via Toulouse. + +September 23. Nice. I settled into the Pension Russe. Met Maxim +Kovalevsky; lunched at his house at Beaulieu, with N.I. Yurassov and +Yakobi, the artist. In Monte Carlo. + +October 7. Confession of a spy. + +October 9. I saw B.'s mother playing roulette. Unpleasant sight. + +November 15. Monte Carlo. I saw how the croupier stole a louis d'or. + + +1898. + +April 16. In Paris. Acquaintance with M.M. Antokolsky [sculptor] and +negotiations for a statue of Peter the Great. + +May 5. Returned home. + +May 26. Sobolevsky came to Melikhovo. Must put down the fact that, +in Paris, in spite of the rain and cold, I spent two or three weeks +without being bored. Arrived here with M. Kovalevsky. Many interesting +acquaintances: Paul Boyer, Art Roe, Bonnie, M. Dreyfus, De Roberti, +Waliczewsky, Onieguin. Luncheons and dinners, at I.I. Schoukin's +house. Left by Nord-express for Petersburg, whence to Moscow. At home, +found wonderful weather. + +An example of clerical boorishness. At a dinner party the critic +Protopopov came up to M. Kovalevsky, clinked glasses and said: "I +drink to science, so long as it does no harm to the people." + + +1901. + +September 12. I was at L. Tolstoi's. + +December 7. Talked to L. Tolstoi over the telephone. + + +1903. + +January 8. "Istorichesky Vestnik," November 1902, "The Artistic Life +of Moscow in the Seventies," by I.N. Zakharin. It is said in that +article that I sent in my "Three Sisters" to the Theatrical and +Literary Committee. It is not true. + + + + +ANTON CHEKHOV'S NOTE-BOOKS + +(1892-1904) + + +Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has +considered fighting as the main thing in life. + + * * * * * + +Solomon made a great mistake when he asked for wisdom.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Among Chekhov's papers the following monologue was found, +written in his own hand: + +_Solomon_ (alone): Oh! how dark is life! No night, when I was a child, +so terrified me by its darkness as does my invisible existence. Lord, +to David my father thou gavest only the gift of harmonizing words and +sounds, to sing and praise thee on strings, to lament sweetly, to make +people weep or admire beauty; but why hast thou given me a meditative, +sleepless, hungry mind? Like an insect born of the dust, I hide in +darkness; and in fear and despair, all shaking and shivering, I see +and hear in everything an invisible mystery. Why this morning? Why +does the sun come out from behind the temple and gild the palm tree? +Why this beauty of women? Where does the bird hurry, what is the +meaning of its flight, if it and its young and the place to which it +hastens will, like myself, turn to dust? It were better I had never +been born or were a stone, to which God has given neither eyes +nor thoughts. In order to tire out my body by nightfall, all day +yesterday, like a mere workman I carried marble to the temple; but +now the night has come and I cannot sleep ... I'll go and lie down. +Phorses told me that if one imagines a flock of sheep running and +fixes one's attention upon it, the mind gets confused and one falls +asleep, I'll do it ...(exit).] + + * * * * * + +Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary +hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But don't be disconcerted by their +aquiline appearance. They are not eagles, but rats or dogs. + + * * * * * + +Those who are more stupid and more dirty than we are called the +people. The administration classifies the population into taxpayers +and non-taxpayers. But neither classification will do; we are all the +people and all the best we are doing is the people's work. + + * * * * * + +If the Prince of Monaco has a roulette table, surely convicts may play +at cards. + + * * * * * + +Iv. (Chekhov's brother Ivan) could philosophize about love, but he +could not love. + + * * * * * + +_Aliosha_: "My mind, mother, is weakened by illness and I am now like +a child: now I pray to God, now I cry, now I am happy." + + * * * * * + +Why did Hamlet trouble about ghosts after death, when life itself is +haunted by ghosts so much more terrible? + + * * * * * + +_Daughter_: "Felt boots are not the correct thing." + +_Father_: "Yes they are clumsy, I'll have to get leather ones." The +father fell ill and his deportation to Siberia was postponed. + +_Daughter_: "You are not at all ill, father. Look, you have your coat +and boots on...." + +_Father_: "I long to be exiled to Siberia. One could sit somewhere by +the Yenissey or Obi river and fish, and on the ferry there would be +nice little convicts, emigrants.... Here I hate everything: this lilac +tree in front of the window, these gravel paths...." + + * * * * * + +A bedroom. The light of the moon shines so brightly through the window +that even the buttons on his night shirt are visible. + + * * * * * + +A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog.... + + * * * * * + +A certain Councillor of State, looking at a beautiful landscape, said: +"What a marvelous function of nature!" From the note-book of an old +dog: "People don't eat slops and bones which the cooks throw away. +Fools!" + + * * * * * + +He had nothing in his soul except recollections of his schooldays. + + * * * * * + +The French say: "Laid comme un chenille"--as ugly as a caterpillar. + + * * * * * + +People are bachelors or old maids because they rouse no interest, not +even a physical one. + + * * * * * + +The children growing up talked at meals about religion and laughed +at fasts, monks, etc. The old mother at first lost her temper, then, +evidently getting used to it, only smiled, but at last she told +the children that they had convinced her, that she is now of their +opinion. The children felt awkward and could not imagine what their +old mother would do without her religion. + + * * * * * + +There is no national science, just as there is no national +multiplication table; what is national is no longer science. + + * * * * * + +The dog walked in the street and was ashamed of its crooked legs. + + * * * * * + +The difference between man and woman: a woman, as she grows old gives +herself up more and more to female affairs; a man, as he grows old, +withdraws himself more and more from female affairs. + + * * * * * + +That sudden and ill-timed love-affair may be compared to this: you +take boys somewhere for a walk; the walk is jolly and interesting--and +suddenly one of them gorges himself with oil paint. + + * * * * * + +The character in the play says to every one: "You've got worms." He +cures his daughter of the worms, and she turns yellow. + + * * * * * + +A scholar, without talent, a blockhead, worked for twenty-four years +and produced nothing good, gave the world only scholars as untalented +and as narrow-minded as himself. At night he secretly bound +books--that was his true vocation: in that he was an artist and felt +the joy of it. There came to him a bookbinder, who loved learning and +studied secretly at night. + + * * * * * + +But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster. + + * * * * * + +Keep to the right, you of the yellow eye! + + * * * * * + +Do you want to eat? No, on the contrary. + + * * * * * + +A pregnant woman with short arms and a long neck, like a kangaroo. + + * * * * * + +How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not +concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their +marvelous works. + + * * * * * + +To demand that the woman one loves should be pure is egotistical: to +look for that in a woman which I have not got myself is not love, but +worship, since one ought to love one's equals. + + * * * * * + +The so-called pure childlike joy of life is animal joy. + + * * * * * + +I cannot bear the crying of children, but when my child cries, I don't +hear. + + * * * * * + +A schoolboy treats a lady to dinner in a restaurant. He has only one +rouble, twenty kopecks. The bill comes to four roubles thirty kopecks. +He has no money and begins to cry. The proprietor boxes his ears. He +was talking to the lady about Abyssinia. + + * * * * * + +A man, who, to judge from his appearance, loves nothing but sausages +and sauerkraut. + + * * * * * + +We judge human activities by their goal; that activity is great of +which the goal is great. + + * * * * * + +You drive on the Nevski, you look to the left on the Haymarket; +the clouds are the color of smoke, the ball of the setting sun +purple--Dante's hell! + + * * * * * + +His income is twenty-five to fifty thousand, and yet out of poverty he +shoots himself. + + * * * * * + +Terrible poverty, desperate situation. The mother a widow, her +daughter a very ugly girl. At last the mother takes courage and +advises the daughter to go on the streets. She herself when young went +on the streets without her husband's knowledge in order to get money +for her dresses; she has some experience. She instructs her daughter. +The latter goes out, walks all night; not a single man takes her; she +is ugly. A couple of days later, three young rascals on the boulevard +take her. She brought home a note which turned out to be a lottery +ticket no longer valid. + + * * * * * + +Two wives: one in Petersburg, the other in Kertch. Constant rows, +threats, telegrams. They nearly reduce him to suicide. At last +he finds a way: he settles them both in the same house. They are +perplexed, petrified; they grow silent and quiet down. + + * * * * * + +His character is so undeveloped that one can hardly believe that he +has been to the University. + + * * * * * + +And I dreamt that, as it were, what I considered reality was a dream, +and the dream was reality. + + * * * * * + +I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious. + + * * * * * + +It usually takes as much time to feel happy as to wind up one's watch. + + * * * * * + +A dirty tavern near the station. And in every tavern like that you +will find salted white sturgeon with horse radish. What a lot of +sturgeon must be salted in Russia! + + * * * * * + +Z. goes on Sundays to the Sukharevka (a market-place in Moscow) to +look for books; he finds a book, written by his father, with the +inscription: "To darling Nadya from the author." + + * * * * * + +A Government official wears on his chest the portrait of the +Governor's wife; he feeds a turkey on nuts and makes her a present of +it. + + * * * * * + +One should be mentally clear, morally pure, and physically tidy. + + * * * * * + +It was said of a certain lady that she had a cat's factory; her lover +tortured the cats by treading on their tails. + + * * * * * + +An officer and his wife went to the baths together, and both were +bathed by the orderly, whom they evidently did not consider a man. + + * * * * * + +"And now he appeared with all his decorations." + +"And what decorations has he got?" + +"He has a bronze medal for the census of 1897." + + * * * * * + +A government clerk gave his son a thrashing because he had only +obtained five marks in all his subjects at school. It seemed to him +not good enough. When he was told that he was in the wrong, that five +is the highest mark obtainable, he thrashed his son again--out of +vexation with himself. + + * * * * * + +A very good man has such a face that people take him for a detective; +he is suspected of having stolen shirt-studs. + + * * * * * + +A serious phlegmatic doctor fell in love with a girl who danced very +well, and, to please her, he started to learn a mazurka. + + * * * * * + +The hen sparrow believes that her cock sparrow is not chirping but +singing beautifully. + + * * * * * + +When one is peacefully at home, life seems ordinary, but as soon as +one walks into the street and begins to observe, to question women, +for instance, then life becomes terrible. The neighborhood of +Patriarshi Prudy (a park and street in Moscow) looks quiet and +peaceful, but in reality life there is hell. + + * * * * * + +These red-faced young and old women are so healthy that steam seems to +exhale from them. + + * * * * * + +The estate will soon be brought under the hammer; there is poverty all +round; and the footmen are still dressed like jesters. + + * * * * * + +There has been an increase not in the number of nervous diseases and +nervous patients, but in the number of doctors able to study those +diseases. + + * * * * * + +The more refined the more unhappy. + + * * * * * + +Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness which is +not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable. + + * * * * * + +The grandfather is given fish to eat, and if it does not poison him +and he remains alive, then all the family eat it. + + * * * * * + +A correspondence. A young man dreams of devoting himself to literature +and constantly writes to his father about it; at last he gives up +the civil service, goes to Petersburg, and devotes himself to +literature--he becomes a censor. + + * * * * * + +First class sleeping car. Passengers numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9. They +discuss daughters-in-law. Simple people suffer from mothers-in-law, +intellectuals from daughters-in-law. + +"My elder son's wife is educated, arranges Sunday schools and +libraries, but she is tactless, cruel, capricious, and physically +revolting. At dinner she will suddenly go off into sham hysterics +because of some article in the newspaper. An affected thing." Another +daughter-in-law: "In society she behaves passably, but at home she +is a dolt, smokes, is miserly, and when she drinks tea, she keeps the +sugar between her lips and teeth and speaks at the same time." + + * * * * * + +Miss Mieschankina. + + * * * * * + +In the servants' quarters Roman, a more or less dissolute peasant, +thinks it his duty to look after the morals of the women servants. + + * * * * * + +A large fat barmaid--a cross between a pig and white sturgeon. + + * * * * * + +At Malo-Bronnaya (a street in Moscow). A little girl who has never +been in the country feels it and raves about it, speaks about +jackdaws, crows and colts, imagining parks and birds on trees. + + * * * * * + +Two young officers in stays. + + * * * * * + +A certain captain taught his daughter the art of fortification. + + * * * * * + +New literary forms always produce new forms of life and that is why +they are so revolting to the conservative human mind. + + * * * * * + +A neurasthenic undergraduate comes home to a lonely country-house, +reads French monologues, and finds them stupid. + + * * * * * + +People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most +uninteresting things in their lives. + + * * * * * + +An official, who wore the portrait of the Governor's wife, lent money +on interest; he secretly becomes rich. The late Governor's wife, whose +portrait he has worn for fourteen years, now lives in a suburb, a poor +widow; her son gets into trouble and she needs 4,000 roubles. She goes +to the official, and he listens to her with a bored look and says: "I +can't do anything for you, my lady." + + * * * * * + +Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company +of women become stupid. + + * * * * * + +A sick innkeeper said to the doctor: "If I get ill, then for the love +of God come without waiting for a summons. My sister will never +call you in, whatever happens; she is a miser, and your fee is three +roubles a visit." A month or two later the doctor heard that the +innkeeper was seriously ill, and while he was making his preparations +to go and see him, he received a letter from the sister saying: "My +brother is dead." Five days later the doctor happened to go to the +village and was told there that the innkeeper had died that morning. +Disgusted he went to the inn. The sister dressed in black stood in the +corner reading a psalm book. The doctor began to upbraid her for her +stinginess and cruelty. The sister went on reading the psalms, but +between every two sentences she stopped to quarrel with him--"Lots +of your like running about here.... The devils brought you here." She +belongs to the old faith, hates passionately and swears desperately. + + * * * * * + +The new governor made a speech to his clerks. He called the merchants +together--another speech. At the annual prize-giving of the +secondary school for girls--a speech on true enlightenment. To the +representatives of the press a speech. He called the Jews together: +"Jews, I have summoned you." ... A month or two passes--he does +nothing. Again he calls the merchants together--a speech. Again the +Jews: "Jews, I have summoned you."... He has wearied them all. At last +he says to his Chancellor: "No, the work is too much for me, I shall +have to resign." + + * * * * * + +A student at a village theological school was learning Latin by heart. +Every half-hour he runs down to the maids' room and, closing his eyes, +feels and pinches them; they scream and giggle; he returns to his book +again. He calls it "refreshing oneself." + + * * * * * + +The Governor's wife invited an official, who had a thin voice and +was her adorer, to have a cup of chocolate with her, and for a week +afterwards he was in bliss. He had saved money and lent it but not on +interest. "I can't lend you any, your son-in-law would gamble it away. +No, I can't." The son-in-law is the husband of the daughter who once +sat in a box in a boa; he lost at cards and embezzled Government +money. The official, who was accustomed to herring and vodka, and who +had never before drunk chocolate, felt sick after the chocolate. The +expression on the lady's face: "Aren't I a darling?"; she spent any +amount of money on dresses and looked forward to making a display of +them--so she gave parties. + + * * * * * + +Going to Paris with one's wife is like going to Tula[1] with one's +samovar. + +[Footnote 1: Tula is a Russian city where samovars are manufactured.] + + * * * * * + +The young do not go in for literature, because the best of them work +on steam engines, in factories, in industrial undertakings. All of +them have now gone into industry, and industry is making enormous +progress. + + * * * * * + +Families where the woman is bourgeoise easily breed adventurers, +swindlers, and brutes without ideals. + + * * * * * + +A professor's opinion: not Shakespeare, but the commentaries on him +are the thing. + + * * * * * + +Let the coming generation attain happiness; but they surely ought to +ask themselves, for what did their ancestors live and for what did +they suffer. + + * * * * * + +Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred +for something. + + * * * * * + +13th December. I saw the owner of a mill, the mother of a family, a +rich Russian woman, who has never seen a lilac bush in Russia. + + * * * * * + +In a letter: "A Russian abroad, if not a spy, is a fool." The neighbor +goes to Florence to cure himself of love, but at a distance his love +grows stronger. + + * * * * * + +Yalta. A young man, interesting, liked by a lady of forty. He is +indifferent to her, avoids her. She suffers and at last, out of spite, +gets up a scandal about him. + + * * * * * + +Pete's mother even in her old age beaded her eyes. + + * * * * * + +Viciousness is a bag with which man is born. + + * * * * * + +B. said seriously that he is the Russian Maupassant. And so did S. + + * * * * * + +A Jewish surname: Cap. + + * * * * * + +A lady looking like a fish standing on its head; her mouth like a +slit, one longs to put a penny in it. + + * * * * * + +Russians abroad: the men love Russia passionately, but the women don't +like her and soon forget her. + + * * * * * + +Chemist Propter. + + * * * * * + +Rosalie Ossipovna Aromat. + + * * * * * + +It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich. + + * * * * * + +And she began to engage in prostitution, got used to sleeping on the +bed, while her aunt, fallen into poverty, used to lie on the little +carpet by her side and jumped up each time the bell rang; when they +left, she would say mindingly, with a pathetic grimace; "Something for +the chamber-maid." And they would tip her sixpence. + + * * * * * + +Prostitutes in Monte Carlo, the whole tone is prostitutional; the palm +trees, it seems, are prostitutes, and the chickens are prostitutes. + + * * * * * + +A big dolt, Z., a qualified nurse, of the Petersburg Rozhdestvensky +School, having ideals, fell in love with X., a teacher, and believed +him to be ideal, a public spirited worker after the manner of novels +and stories of which she was so fond. Little by little she found +him out, a drunkard, an idler, good-natured and not very clever. +Dismissed, he began to live on his wife, sponged on her. He was an +excrescence, a kind of sarcoma, who wasted her completely. She was +once engaged to attend some intellectual country people, she went to +them every day; they felt it awkward to give her money--and, to her +great vexation, gave her husband a suit as a present. He would drink +tea for hours and this infuriated her. Living with her husband she +grew thin, ugly, spiteful, stamped her foot and shouted at him: "Leave +me, you low fellow." She hated him. She worked, and people paid the +money to him, for, being a Zemstvo worker, she took no money, and it +enraged her that their friends did not understand him and thought him +ideal. + + * * * * * + +A young man made a million marks, lay down on them, and shot himself. + + * * * * * + +"That woman." ... "I married when I was twenty; I have not drunk a +glass of vodka all my life, haven't smoked a single cigarette." After +he had run off with another woman, people got to like him more and +to believe him more, and, when he walked in the street, he began to +notice that they had all become kinder and nicer to him--because he +had fallen. + + * * * * * + +A man and woman marry because both of them don't know what to do with +themselves. + + * * * * * + +The power and salvation of a people lie in its intellegentsia, in the +intellectuals who think honestly, feel, and can work. + + * * * * * + +A man without a mustache is like a woman with a mustache. + + * * * * * + +A man who cannot win a woman by a kiss will not win her by a blow. + + * * * * * + +For one sensible person there are a thousand fools, and for one +sensible word there are a thousand stupid ones; the thousand +overwhelms the one, and that is why cities and villages progress so +slowly. The majority, the mass, always remain stupid; it will always +overwhelm; the sensible man should give up hope of educating and +lifting it up to himself; he had better call in the assistance of +material force, build railways, telegraphs, telephones--in that way he +will conquer and help life forward. + + * * * * * + +Really decent people are only to be found amongst men who have +definite, either conservative or radical, convictions; so-called +moderate men are much inclined to rewards, commissions, orders, +promotions. + + * * * * * + +"What did your uncle die of?" + +"Instead of fifteen Botkin drops,[1] as the doctor prescribed, he took +sixteen." + +[Footnote 1: A very harmless purgative.] + + * * * * * + +A young philologist, who has just left the University, comes home to +his native town. He is elected churchwarden. He does not believe in +God, but goes to church regularly, makes the sign of the cross when +passing near a church or chapel, thinking that that sort of thing is +necessary for the people and that the salvation of Russia is bound up +with it. He is elected chairman of the Zemstvo board and a Justice of +the Peace, he wins orders and medals; he does not notice that he has +reached the age of forty-five; then suddenly he realizes that all the +time he has been acting and making a fool of himself, but it is now +too late to change his way of life. Once in his sleep he suddenly +hears like the report of a gun the words: "What are you doing?"--and +he starts up all in a sweat. + + * * * * * + +One cannot resist evil, but one can resist good. + + * * * * * + +He flatters the authorities like a priest. + + * * * * * + +Instead of sheets--dirty tablecloths. + + * * * * * + +A Jewish surname: Perchik (little pepper). + + * * * * * + +A man in conversation: "And all the rest of it." + + * * * * * + +A rich man, usually insolent, his conceit enormous, but bears his +riches like a cross. If the ladies and generals did not dispense +charity on his account, if it were not for the poor students and +the beggars, he would feel the anguish of loneliness. If the beggars +struck and agreed not to beg from him, he would go to them himself. + + * * * * * + +The husband invites his friends to his country-house in the Crimea, +and afterwards his wife, without her husband's knowledge, brings them +the bill and is paid for board and lodging. + + * * * * * + +Potapov becomes attached to the brother, and this is the beginning of +his falling in love with the sister. Divorces his wife. Afterwards the +son sends him plans for a rabbit-hutch. + + * * * * * + +"I have sown clover and oats."' + +"No good; you had much better sow lucerne." + +"I have begun to keep a pig." + +"No good. It does not pay. You had better go in for mares." + + * * * * * + +A girl, a devoted friend, out of the best of motives, went about with +a subscription list for X., who was not in want. + + * * * * * + +Why are the dogs of Constantinople so often described? + + * * * * * + +Disease: "He has got hydropathy." + + * * * * * + +I visit a friend, find him at supper; there are many guests. It +is very gay; I am glad to chatter with the women and drink wine. +A wonderfully pleasant mood. Suddenly up gets N. with an air of +importance, as though he were a public prosecutor, and makes a speech +in my honor. "The magician of words ... ideals ... in our time when +ideals grow dim ... you are sowing wisdom, undying things...." I feel +as if I had had a cover over me and that now the cover had been taken +off and some one was aiming a pistol at me. + + * * * * * + +After the speech--a murmur of conversation, then silence. The gayety +has gone. "You must speak now," says my neighbor. But what can I say? +I would gladly throw the bottle at him. And I go to bed with some +sediment in my soul. "Look what a fool sits among you!" + + * * * * * + +The maid, when she makes the bed, always puts the slippers under the +bed close to the wall. The fat master, unable to bear it any longer, +gives the maid notice. It turns out that the doctor told her to put +the slippers as far as possible under the bed so as to cure the man of +his obesity. + + * * * * * + +The club blackballed a respectable man because all of the members were +out of humor; they ruined his prospects. + + * * * * * + +A large factory. The young employer plays the superior to all and is +rude to the employees who have University degrees. Only the gardener, +a German, has the courage to be offended: "How dare you, gold bag?" + + * * * * * + +A tiny little schoolboy with the name of Trachtenbauer. + + * * * * * + +Whenever he reads in the newspaper about the death of a great man, he +wears mourning. + + * * * * * + +In the theatre. A gentleman asks a lady to take her hat off, as it +is in his way. Grumbling, disagreeableness, entreaties. At last a +confession: "Madam, I am the author of the play." She answered: "I +don't care." + + * * * * * + +In order to act wisely it is not enough to be wise (Dostoevsky). + + * * * * * + +A. and B. have a bet. A. wins the wager, by eating twelve cutlets; B. +does not pay even for the cutlets. + + * * * * * + +It is terrible to dine every day with a person who stammers and says +stupid things. + + * * * * * + +Glancing at a plump, appetizing woman: "It is not a woman, it is a +full moon." + + * * * * * + +From her face one would imagine that under her stays she has got +gills. + + * * * * * + +For a farce: Kapiton Ivanovitch Boil. + + * * * * * + +An income-tax inspector and an excise official, in order to justify +their occupations to themselves, say spontaneously: "It is an +interesting profession, there is a lot of work, it is a live +occupation." + + * * * * * + +At twenty she loved Z., at twenty-four she married N. not because she +loved him, but because she thought him a good, wise, ideal man. The +couple lived happily; every one envies them, and indeed their life +passes smoothly and placidly; she is satisfied, and, when people +discuss love, she says that for family life not love nor passion is +wanted, but affection. But once the music played suddenly, and, inside +her heart, everything broke up like ice in spring: she remembered Z. +and her love for him, and she thought with despair that her life was +ruined, spoilt for ever, and that she was unhappy. Then it happened +to her with the New Year greetings; when people wished her "New +Happiness," she indeed longed for new happiness. + + * * * * * + +Z. goes to a doctor, who examines him and finds that he is suffering +from heart disease. Z. abruptly changes his way of life, takes +medicine, can only talk about his disease; the whole town knows that +he has heart disease and all the doctors, whom he regularly consults, +say that he has got heart disease. He does not marry, gives up amateur +theatricals, does not drink, and when he walks does so slowly and +hardly breathes. Eleven years later he has to go to Moscow and there +he consults a specialist. The latter finds that his heart is perfectly +sound. Z. is overjoyed, but he can no longer return to a normal life, +for he has got accustomed to going to bed early and to walking slowly, +and he is bored if he cannot speak of his disease. The only result is +that he gets to hate doctors--that is all. + + * * * * * + +A woman is fascinated not by art, but by the noise made by those who +have to do with art. + + * * * * * + +N., a dramatic critic, has a mistress X., an actress. Her benefit +night. The play is rotten, the acting poor, but N. has to praise. +He writes briefly: "The play and the leading actress had an enormous +success. Particulars to-morrow." As he wrote the last two words, he +gave a sigh of relief. Next day he goes to X.; she opens the door, +allows him to kiss and embrace her, and in a cutting tone says: +"Particulars to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +In Kislovodsk or some other watering-place Z. picked up a girl of +twenty-two; she was poor, straightforward, he took pity on her and, +in addition to her fee, he left twenty-five roubles on the chest of +drawers; he left her room with the feeling of a man who has done +a good deed. The next time he visited her, he noticed an expensive +ash-tray and a man's fur cap, bought out of his twenty-five +roubles--the girl again starving, her cheeks hollow. + + * * * * * + +N. mortgages his estate with the Bank of the Nobility at 4 per cent, +and then lends the money on mortgage at 12 per cent. + + * * * * * + +Aristocrats? The same ugly bodies and physical uncleanliness, the same +toothless old age and disgusting death, as with market-women. + + * * * * * + +N., when a group is being photographed, always stands in the front +row; on addresses he always signs the first; at anniversaries he is +always the first to speak. Always wonders: "O soup! O pastries!" + + * * * * * + +Z. got tired of having visitors, and he hired a French woman to live +in his house as if she were his mistress. This shocked the ladies and +he no longer had visitors. + + * * * * * + +Z. is a torch-bearer at funerals. He is an idealist. "In the +undertaker's shop." + + * * * * * + +N. and Z. are intimate friends, but when they meet in society, they at +once make fun of one another--out of shyness. + + * * * * * + +Complaint: "My son Stepan was delicate, and I therefore sent him to +school in the Crimea, but there he was caned with a vine-branch, and +that gave him philoxera in the behind and now the doctors can not cure +him." + + * * * * * + +Mitya and Katya were told that their papa blasted rocks in the quarry. +They wanted to blow up their cross grandpapa, so they took a pound of +powder from their father's room, put it in a bottle, inserted a wick, +and placed it under their grandfather's chair, when he was dozing +after dinner; but soldiers marched by with the band playing--and this +was the only thing that prevented them from carrying out their plan. + + * * * * * + +Sleep is a marvelous mystery of Nature which renews all the powers of +man, bodily and spiritual. (Bishop Porphyrius Usgensky, "The Book of +My Life.") + + * * * * * + +A woman imagines that she has a peculiar, exceptional constitution, +whose ailments are different from other people's and which cannot +stand ordinary medicine. She thinks that her son is unlike other +people's sons, that he has to be brought up differently. She believes +in principles, but she thinks that they apply to every one but +herself, because she lives in exceptional circumstances. The son grows +up, and she tries to find an exceptional wife for him. Those around +her suffer. The son turns out a scoundrel. + + * * * * * + +Poor long-suffering art! + + * * * * * + +A man whose madness takes the form of an idea that he is a ghost: +walks at night. + + * * * * * + +A sentimental man, like Lavrov, has moments of pleasant emotion and +makes the request: "Write a letter to my auntie in Briansk; she is a +darling...." + + * * * * * + +There is a bad smell in the barn: ten years ago haymakers slept the +night in it and ever since it smells. + + * * * * * + +An officer at a doctor's. The money on a plate. The doctor can see in +the looking-glass that the patient takes twenty-five roubles from the +plate and pays him with it. + + * * * * * + +Russia is a nobody's country! + + * * * * * + +Z. who is always saying banal things: "With the agility of a bear," +"on one's favorite corn." + + * * * * * + +A savings bank: the clerk, a very nice man, looks down on the bank, +considers it useless--and yet goes on working there. + + * * * * * + +A radical lady, who crosses herself at night, is secretly full of +prejudice and superstition, hears that in order to be happy one should +boil a black cat by night. She steals a cat and tries to boil it. + + * * * * * + +A publisher's twenty-fifth anniversary. Tears, a speech: "I offer ten +roubles to the literary fund, the interest to be paid to the poorest +writer, but on condition that a special committee is appointed to work +out the rules according to which the distribution shall be made." + + * * * * * + +He wore a blouse and despised those who wore frock coats. A stew of +trousers. + + * * * * * + +The ice cream is made of milk in which, as it were, the patients +bathed. + + * * * * * + +It was a grand forest of timber, but a Government Conservator was +appointed, and in two years time there was no more timber; the +caterpillar pest. + + * * * * * + +X.: "Choleraic disorder in my stomach started with the cider." + + * * * * * + +Of some writers each work taken separately is brilliant, but taken as +a whole they are indefinite; of others each particular work represents +nothing outstanding; but, for all that, taken as a whole they are +distinct and brilliant. + + * * * * * + +N. rings at the door of an actress; he is nervous, his heart beats, at +the critical moment he gets into a panic and runs away; the maid opens +the door and sees nobody. He returns, rings again--but has not the +courage to go in. In the end the porter comes out and gives him a +thrashing. + + * * * * * + +A gentle quiet schoolmistress secretly beats her pupils, because she +believes in the good of corporal punishment. + + * * * * * + +N.: "Not only the dog, but even the horses howled." + + * * * * * + +N. marries. His mother and sister see a great many faults in his wife; +they are distressed, and only after four or five years realize that +she is just like themselves. + + * * * * * + +The wife cried. The husband took her by the shoulders and shook her, +and she stopped crying. + + * * * * * + +After his marriage everything--politics, literature, society--did not +seem to him as interesting as they had before; but now every trifle +concerning his wife and child became a most important matter. + + * * * * * + +"Why are thy songs so short?" a bird was once asked. "Is it because +thou art short of breath?" + +"I have very many songs and I should like to sing them all." + +(A. Daudet.) + + * * * * * + +The dog hates the teacher; they tell it not to bark at him; it looks, +does not bark, only whimpers with rage. + + * * * * * + +Faith is a spiritual faculty; animals have not got it; savages and +uncivilized people have merely fear and doubt. Only highly developed +natures can have faith. + + * * * * * + +Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you +might live for ever and never die. + + * * * * * + +The public really loves in art that which is banal and long familiar, +that to which they have grown accustomed. + + * * * * * + +A progressive, educated, young, but stingy school guardian inspects +the school every day, makes long speeches there, but does not spend a +penny on it: the school is falling to pieces, but he considers himself +useful and necessary. The teacher hates him, but he does not notice +it. The harm is great. Once the teacher, unable to stand it any +longer, facing him with anger and disgust, bursts out swearing at him. + + * * * * * + +_Teacher_: "Poushkin's centenary should not be celebrated; he did +nothing for the church." + + * * * * * + +Miss Guitarov (actress). + + * * * * * + +If you wish to become an optimist and understand life, stop believing +what people say and write, observe and discover for yourself. + + * * * * * + +Husband and wife zealously followed X.'s idea and built up their life +according to it as if it were a formula. Only just before death they +asked themselves: "Perhaps that idea is wrong? Perhaps the saying +'mens sana in corpore sano' is untrue?" + + * * * * * + +I detest: a playful Jew, a radical Ukrainian, and a drunken German. + + * * * * * + +The University brings out all abilities, including stupidity. + + * * * * * + +Taking into consideration, dear sir, as a result of this view, dear +sir.... + + * * * * * + +The most intolerable people are provincial celebrities. + + * * * * * + +Owing to our flightiness, because the majority of us are unable and +unaccustomed to think or to look deeply into life's phenomena, nowhere +else do people so often say: "How banal!" nowhere else do people +regard so superficially, and often contemptuously other people's +merits or serious questions. On the other hand nowhere else does the +authority of a name weigh so heavily as with us Russians, who have +been abased by centuries of slavery and fear freedom.... + + * * * * * + +A doctor advised a merchant to eat soup and chicken. The merchant +thought the advice ironical. At first he ate a dinner of botvinia and +pork, and then, as if recollecting the doctor's orders, ordered soup +and chicken and swallowed them down too, thinking it a great joke. + + * * * * * + +Father Epaminond catches fish and puts them in his pocket; then, when +he gets home, he takes out a fish at a time, as he wants it, and fries +it. + + * * * * * + +The nobleman X. sold his estate to N. with all the furniture according +to an inventory, but he took away everything else, even the oven +dampers, and after that N. hated all noblemen. + + * * * * * + +The rich, intellectual X., of peasant origin, implored his +son:--"Mike, don't get out of your class. Be a peasant until you die, +do not become a nobleman, nor a merchant, nor a bourgeois. If, as +you say, the Zemstvo officer now has the right to inflict corporal +punishment on peasants, then let him also have the right to punish +you." He was proud of his peasant origin, he was even haughty about +it. + + * * * * * + +They celebrated the birthday of an honest man. Took the opportunity +to show off and praise one another. Only towards the end of the dinner +they suddenly discovered that the man had not been invited; they had +forgotten. + + * * * * * + +A gentle quiet woman, getting into a temper, says: "If I were a man, I +would just bash your filthy mug." + + * * * * * + +A Mussulman for the salvation of his soul digs a well. It would be a +pleasant thing if each of us left a school, a well, or something like +that, so that life should not pass away into eternity without leaving +a trace behind it. + + * * * * * + +We are tired out by servility and hypocrisy. + + * * * * * + +N. once had his clothes torn by dogs, and now, when he pays a call +anywhere, he asks: "Aren't there any dogs here?" + + * * * * * + +A young pimp, in order to keep up his powers, always eats garlic. + + * * * * * + +School guardian. Widowed priest plays the harmonium and sings: "Rest +with the saints." + + * * * * * + +In July the red bird sings the whole morning. + + * * * * * + +"A large selection of _cigs"_[1]--so read X. every day when he went +down the street, and wondered how one could deal only in _cigs_ and +who wanted them. It took him thirty years before he read it correctly: +"A large selection of cigars." + +[Footnote 1: _Cigs_ in Russian is a kind of fish.] + + * * * * * + +A bride to an engineer: a dynamite cartridge filled with +one-hundred-rouble notes. + + * * * * * + +"I have not read Herbert Spencer. Tell me his subjects. What does +he write about?" "I want to paint a panel for the Paris exhibition. +Suggest a subject." (A wearisome lady.) + + * * * * * + +The idle, so-called governing, classes cannot remain long without war. +When there is no war they are bored, idleness fatigues and irritates +them, they do not know what they live for; they bite one another, try +to say unpleasant things to one another, if possible with impunity, +and the best of them make the greatest efforts not to bore the others +and themselves. But when war comes, it possesses all, takes hold of +the imagination, and the common misfortune unites all. + + * * * * * + +An unfaithful wife is a large cold cutlet which one does not want to +touch, because some one else has had it in his hands. + + * * * * * + +An old maid writes a treatise: "The tramline of piety." + + * * * * * + +Ryzeborsky, Tovbin, Gremoukhin, Koptin. + + * * * * * + +She had not sufficient skin on her face; in order to open her eyes she +had to shut her mouth and _vice versa_. + + * * * * * + +When she raises her skirt and shows her lace petticoat, it is obvious +that she dresses like a woman who is accustomed to be seen by men. + + * * * * * + +X. philosophizes: "Take the word 'nose.' In Russia it seems something +unmentionable means the deuce knows what, one may say the indecent +part of the body, and in French it means wedding." And indeed X.'s +nose was an indecent part of the body. + + * * * * * + +A girl, flirting, chatters: "All are afraid of me ... men, and +the wind ... all leave me alone! I shall never marry." And at home +poverty, her father a regular drunkard. And if people could see how +she and her mother work, how she screens her father, they would feel +the deepest respect for her and would wonder why she is so ashamed of +poverty and work, and is not ashamed of that chatter. + + * * * * * + +A restaurant. An advanced conversation Andrey Andreyevitch, a +good-natured bourgeois, suddenly declares: "Do you know gentlemen, +I was once an anarchist!" Every one is astonished. A.A. tells the +following tale: a strict father; a technical school opened in the +provincial town in a craze for technical education; they have no ideas +and they did not know what to teach (since, if you are going to make +shoemakers of all the inhabitants, who will buy the shoes?); he was +expelled and his father turned him out of the house; he had to take +a job as an assistant clerk on the squire's estate; he became enraged +with the rich, the well-fed, and the fat; the squire planted cherry +trees, A.A. helped him, and suddenly a desire came over him to cut +off the squire's white fat fingers with the spade, as if it were by +accident; and closing his eyes he struck a blow with the shovel as +hard as he could, but it missed. Then he went away; the forest, the +quiet in the fields, rain; he longed for warmth, went to his aunt, she +gave him tea and rolls--and his anarchism was gone. After the story +there passed by the table Councillor of State L. Immediately A.A. gets +up and explains how L., Councillor of State, owns houses, etc. + + * * * * * + +I was apprenticed to a tailor. He cut the trousers; I did the +sewing, but the stripe came down here right over the knee. Then I was +apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. I was planing once when the plane flew +out of my hands and hit the window; it broke the glass. The squire was +a Lett, his name Shtoppev[1]; and he had an expression on his face +as if he were going to wink and say: "Wouldn't it be nice to have a +drink?" In the evenings he drank, drank by himself--and I felt hurt. + +[Footnote 1: _Shtopov_ means "cork-screw."] + + * * * * * + +A dealer in cider puts labels on his bottles with a crown printed on +them. It irritates and vexes X. who torments himself with the +idea that a mere trader is usurping the crown. X complains to the +authorities, worries every one, seeks redress and so on; he dies from +irritation and worry. + + * * * * * + +A governess is teased with the nickname Gesticulation. + + * * * * * + +Shaptcherigin, Zambisebulsky, Sveentchutka, Chemburaklya. + + * * * * * + +Senile pomposity, senile vindictiveness. What a number of despicable +old men I have known! + + * * * * * + +How delightful when on a bright frosty morning a new sleigh with a rug +comes to the door. + + * * * * * + +X. arrived to take up duty at N., he shows himself a despot: he is +annoyed when some one else is a success; he becomes quite different +in the presence of a third person; when a woman is present, his tone +changes; when he pours out wine, he first puts a little in his own +glass and then helps the company; when he walks with a lady he takes +her arm; in general he tries to show refinement. He does not laugh at +other people's jokes: "You repeat yourself." "There is nothing new in +that." Every one is sick of him; he sermonizes. The old women nickname +him "the top." + + * * * * * + +A man who can not do anything, does not know how to act, how to enter +a room, how to ask for anything. + + * * * * * + +Utiujny + + * * * * * + +A man who always insists: "I haven't got syphilis. I'm an honest man. +My wife is an honest woman." + + * * * * * + +X. all his life spoke and wrote about the vices of servants and about +the way to manage and control them, and he died deserted by every one +except his valet and his cook. + + * * * * * + +A little girl with rapture about her aunt: "She is very beautiful, as +beautiful as our dog!" + + * * * * * + +Marie Ivanovna Kolstovkin. + + * * * * * + +In a love letter: "Stamp enclosed for a reply." + + * * * * * + +The best men leave the villages for the towns, and therefore the +villages decline and will continue to decline. + + * * * * * + +Pavel was a cook for forty years; he loathed the things which he +cooked and he never ate. + + * * * * * + +He ceased to love a woman; the sensation of not being in love; a +peaceful state of mind; long peaceful thoughts. + + * * * * * + +Conservative people do so little harm because they are timid and have +no confidence in themselves; harm is done not by conservative but by +malicious people. + + * * * * * + +One of two things: either sit in the carriage or get out of it. + + * * * * * + +For a play: an old woman of radical views dresses like a girl, smokes, +cannot exist without company, sympathetic. + + * * * * * + +In a Pullman car--these are the dregs of society. + + * * * * * + +On the lady's bosom was the portrait of a fat German. + + * * * * * + +A man who at all elections all his life long always voted against the +Left. + + * * * * * + +They undressed the corpse, but had no time to take the gloves off; a +corpse in gloves. + + * * * * * + +A farmer at dinner boasts: "Life in the country is cheap--one has +one's own chickens, one's own pigs--life is cheap." + + * * * * * + +A customs official, from want of love for his work, searches the +passengers, looking for documents of a suspicious political nature, +and makes even the gendarmes indignant. + + * * * * * + +A real male (mouzhtchina) consists of man (mouzh) and title (tchin). + + * * * * * + +Education: "Masticate your food properly," their father told them. And +they masticated properly, and walked two hours every day, and washed +in cold water, and yet they turned out unhappy and without talent. + + * * * * * + +Commercial and industrial medicine. + + * * * * * + +N. forty years old married a girl seventeen. The first night, when +they returned to his mining village, she went to bed and suddenly +burst into tears, because she did not love him. He is a good soul, is +overwhelmed with distress, and goes off to sleep in his little working +room. + + * * * * * + +On the spot where the former manor house stood there is no trace left; +only one lilac bush remains and that for some reason does not bloom. + + * * * * * + +Son: "To-day I believe is Thursday." + +Mother: (not having heard) "What?" + +Son: (angrily) "Thursday!" (quietly) "I ought to take a bath." + +Mother: "What?" + +Son: (angry and offended) "Bath!" + + * * * * * + +N. goes to X. every day, talks to him, and shows real sympathy in his +grief; suddenly X. leaves his house, where he was so comfortable. N. +asks X.'s mother why he went away. She answers: "Because you came to +see him every day." + + * * * * * + +It was such a romantic wedding, and later--what fools! what babies! + + * * * * * + +Love. Either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something +which once has been immense, or it is a particle of what will in +the future develop into something immense; but in the present it is +unsatisfying, it gives much less than one expects. + + * * * * * + +A very intellectual man all his life tells lies about hypnotism, +spiritualism--and people believe him; yet he is quite a nice man. + + * * * * * + +In Act I, X., a respectable man, borrows a hundred roubles from N., +and in the course of all four acts he does not pay it back. + + * * * * * + +A grandmother has six sons and three daughters, and best of all she +loves the failure, who drinks and has been in prison. + + * * * * * + +N., the manager of a factory, rich, with a wife and children, happy, +has written "An investigation into the mineral spring at X." He was +much praised for it and was invited to join the staff of a newspaper; +he gave up his post, went to Petersburg, divorced his wife, spent his +money--and went to the dogs. + + * * * * * + +(Looking at a photograph album): "Whose ugly face is that?" + +"That's my uncle." + + * * * * * + +Alas, what is terrible is not the skeletons, but the fact that I am no +longer terrified by them. + + * * * * * + +A boy of good family, capricious, full of mischief, obstinate, wore +out his whole family. The father, an official who played the piano, +got to hate him, took him into a corner of the garden, flogged him +with considerable pleasure, and then felt disgusted with himself. The +son has grown up and is an officer. + + * * * * * + +N. courted Z. for a long time. She was very religious, and, when he +proposed to her, she put a dried flower, which he had once given to +her, into her prayer-book. + + * * * * * + +Z: "As you are going to town, post my letter in the letter-box." + +N: (alarmed) "Where? I don't know where the letter-box is." + +Z: "Will you also call at the chemist's and get me some naphthaline?" + +N: (alarmed) "I'll forget the naphthaline, I'll forget." + + * * * * * + +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. + + * * * * * + +N., heavy, morose, gloomy, says: "I love a joke, I am always joking." + + * * * * * + +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 litterateur, 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." + + * * * * * + +Count, I am going away to Mordegundia. (A land of horrible faces.) + + * * * * * + +Barbara Nedotyopin. + + * * * * * + +Z., an engineer or doctor, went on a visit to his uncle, an editor; +he became interested, began to go there frequently; then became a +contributor to the paper, little by little gave up his profession; one +night he came out of the newspaper office, remembered, and seized his +head in his hands--"all is lost!" He began to go gray. Then it became +a habit, he was quite white now and flabby, an editor, respectable but +obscure. + + * * * * * + +A Privy Councillor, an old man, looking at his children, became a +radical himself. + + * * * * * + +A newspaper: "Cracknel." + + * * * * * + +The clown in the circus--that is talent, and the waiter in the frock +coat speaking to him--that is the crowd; the waiter with an ironical +smile on his face. + + * * * * * + +Auntie from Novozybkov. + + * * * * * + +He has a rarefaction of the brain and his brains have leaked into his +ears. + + * * * * * + +"What? Writers? If you like, for a shilling I'll make a writer of +you." + + * * * * * + +Instead of translator, contractor. + + * * * * * + +An actress, forty years old, ugly, ate a partridge for dinner, and I +felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life +it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than that +actress. + + * * * * * + +The doctor said to me: "If," says he, "your constitution holds out, +drink to your heart's content." (Gorbunov.) + + * * * * * + +Carl Kremertartarlau. + + * * * * * + +A field with a distant view, one tiny birch tree. The inscription +under the picture: loneliness. + + * * * * * + +The guests had gone: they had played cards and everything was in +disorder: tobacco smoke, scraps of paper, and chiefly--the dawn and +memories. + + * * * * * + +Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them. + + * * * * * + +Why do trees grow and so luxuriantly, when the owners are dead? + + * * * * * + +The character keeps a library, but he is always away visiting; there +are no readers. + + * * * * * + +Life seems great, enormous, and yet one sits on one's _piatachok_.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The word means five kopecks and also a pig's snout.] + + * * * * * + +Zolotonosha?[1] There is no such town! No! + +[Footnote 1: The name of a Russian town, meaning literally +"Gold-carrier."] + + * * * * * + +When he laughs, he shows his teeth and gums. + + * * * * * + +He loved the sort of literature which did not upset him, Schiller, +Homer, etc. + + * * * * * + +N., a teacher, on her way home in the evening was told by her friend +that X. had fallen in love with her, N., and wanted to propose. N., +ungainly, who had never before thought of marriage, when she got home, +sat for a long time trembling with fear, could not sleep, cried, and +towards morning fell in love with X.; next day she heard that the +whole thing was a supposition on the part of her friend and that X. +was going to marry not her but Y. + + * * * * * + +He had a liaison with a woman of forty-five after which he began to +write ghost stories. + + * * * * * + +I dreamt that I was in India and that one of the local princes +presented me with an elephant, two elephants even. I was so worried +about the elephant that I woke up. + + * * * * * + +An old man of eighty says to another old man of sixty: "You ought to +be ashamed, young man." + + * * * * * + +When they sang in church, "Now is the beginning of our salvation," he +ate _glavizna_ at home; on the day of St. John the Baptist he ate no +food that was circular and flogged his children.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Glavizna_ in Russian is the name of a fish and also +means beginning; the root of the verbs "to behead" and "to flog" are +the same.] + + * * * * * + +A journalist wrote lies in the newspaper, but he thought he was +writing the truth. + + * * * * * + +If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry. + + * * * * * + +He himself is rich, but his mother is in the workhouse. + + * * * * * + +He married, furnished a house, bought a writing-table, got everything +in order, but found he had nothing to write. + + * * * * * + +Faust: "What you don't know is just what you want; what you know is +what you can't use." + + * * * * * + +Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak +with authority. + + * * * * * + +As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone. + + * * * * * + +A German: "Lord have mercy on us, _grieshniki_."[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Grieshniki_ means "sinners," but sounds like +_grietchnieviki_ which means "buckwheat cakes."] + + * * * * * + +"O my dear little pimple!" said the bride tenderly. The bridegroom +thought for a while, then felt hurt--they parted. + + * * * * * + +They were mineral water bottles with preserved cherries in them. + + * * * * * + +An actress who spoilt all her parts by very bad acting--and this +continued all her life long until she died. Nobody liked her; she +ruined all the best parts; and yet she went on acting until she was +seventy. + + * * * * * + +He alone is all right and can repent who feels himself to be wrong. + + * * * * * + +The archdeacon curses the "doubters," and they stand in the choir and +sing anathema to themselves (Skitalez). + + * * * * * + +He imagined that his wife lay with her legs cut off and that he nursed +her in order to save his soul.... + + * * * * * + +Madame Snuffley. + + * * * * * + +The black-beetles have left the house; the house will be burnt down. + + * * * * * + +"Dmitri, the Pretender, and Actors." "Turgenev and the Tigers." +Articles like that can be and are written. + + * * * * * + +A title: Lemon Peel. + + * * * * * + +I am your legitimate husband. + + * * * * * + +An abortion, because while birthing a wave struck her, a wave of the +ocean; because of the eruption of Vesuvius. + + * * * * * + +It seems to me: the sea and myself--and nothing else. + + * * * * * + +Education: his three-year-old son wore a black frock-coat, boots, and +waistcoat. + + * * * * * + +With pride: "I'm not of Yuriev, but of Dorpat University."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Yuriev is the Russian name of the town Dorpat.] + + * * * * * + +His beard looked like the tail of a fish. + + * * * * * + +A Jew, Ziptchik. + + * * * * * + +A girl, when she giggles, makes noises as if she were putting her head +in cold water. + + * * * * * + +"Mamma, what is a thunderbolt made of?" + + * * * * * + +On the estate there is a bad smell, and bad taste; the trees +are planted anyhow, stupidly; and away in a remote corner the +lodge-keeper's wife all day long washes the guest's linen--and nobody +sees her; and the owners are allowed to talk away whole days about +their rights and their nobility. + + * * * * * + +She fed her dog on the best caviare. + + * * * * * + +Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions +are Asiatic. + + * * * * * + +A black dog--he looks as if he were wearing goloshes. + + * * * * * + +A Russian's only hope--to win two hundred thousand roubles in a +lottery. + + * * * * * + +She is wicked, but she taught her children good. + + * * * * * + +Every one has something to hide. + + * * * * * + +The title of N.'s story: The Power of Harmonies. + + * * * * * + +O how nice it would be if bachelors or widowers were appointed +Governors. + + * * * * * + +A Moscow actress never in her life saw a turkey-hen. + + * * * * * + +On the lips of the old I hear either stupidity or malice. + + * * * * * + +"Mamma, Pete did not say his prayers." Pete is woken up, he says his +prayers, cries, then lies down and shakes his fist at the child who +made the complaint. + + * * * * * + +He imagined that only doctors could say whether it is male or female. + + * * * * * + +One became a priest, the other a _Dukhobor_, the third a philosopher, +and in each case instinctively because no one wants really to work +with bent back from morning to night. + + * * * * * + +A passion for the word uterine: my uterine brother, my uterine wife, +my uterine brother-in-law, etc. + + * * * * * + +To Doctor N., an illegitimate child, who has never lived with his +father and knew him very little, his bosom friend Z., says with +agitation: "You see, the fact of the matter is that your father misses +you very much, he is ill and wants to have a look at you." The father +keeps "Switzerland," furnished apartments. He takes the fried fish out +of the dish with his hands and only afterwards uses a fork. The vodka +smells rank. N. went, looked about him, had dinner--his only feeling +that that fat peasant, with the grizzled beard, should sell such +filth. But once, when passing the house at midnight, he looked in at +the window: his father was sitting with bent back reading a book. He +recognized himself and his own manners. + + * * * * * + +As stupid as a gray gelding. + + * * * * * + +They teased the girl with castor oil, and therefore she did not marry. + + * * * * * + +N. all his life used to write abusive letters to famous singers, +actors, and authors: "You think, you scamp,..."--without signing his +name. + + * * * * * + +When the man who carried the torch at funerals came out in his +three-cornered hat, his frock coat with laces and stripes, she fell in +love with him. + + * * * * * + +A sparkling, joyous nature, a kind of living protest against +grumblers; he is fat and healthy, eats a great deal, every one likes +him but only because they are afraid of the grumblers; he is a nobody, +a Ham, only eats and laughs loud, and that's all; when he dies, every +one sees that he had done nothing, that they had mistaken him for some +one else. + + * * * * * + +After the inspection of the building, the Commission, which was +bribed, lunched heartily, and it was precisely a funeral feast over +honesty. + + * * * * * + +He who tells lies is dirty. + + * * * * * + +At three o'clock in the morning they wake him: he has to go to his job +at the railway station, and so every day for the last fourteen years. + + * * * * * + +A lady grumbles: "I write to my son that he should change his linen +every Saturday. He replies: 'Why Saturday, not Monday?' I answer: +'Well, all right, let it be Monday.' And he: 'Why Monday, not +Tuesday?' He is a nice honest man, but I get worried by him." + + * * * * * + +A clever man loves learning but is a fool at teaching. + + * * * * * + +The sermons of priests, archimandrites, and bishops are wonderfully +like one another. + + * * * * * + +One remembers the arguments about the brotherhood of man, public good, +and work for the people, but really there were no such arguments, one +only drank at the University. They write: "One feels ashamed of the +men with University degrees who once fought for human rights and +freedom of religion and conscience"--but they never fought. + + * * * * * + +Every day after dinner the husband threatens his wife that he will +become a monk, and the wife cries. + + * * * * * + +Mordokhvostov. + + * * * * * + +Husband and wife have lived together and quarreled for eighteen years. +At last he makes a confession, which was in fact untrue, of having +been false to her, and they part to his great pleasure and to the +wrath of the whole town. + + * * * * * + +A useless thing, an album with forgotten, uninteresting photographs, +lies in the corner on a chair; it has been lying there for the last +twenty years and no one makes up his mind to throw it away. + + * * * * * + +N. tells how forty years ago X., a wonderful and extraordinary man, +had saved the lives of five people, and N. feels it strange that every +one listened with indifference, that the history of X. is already +forgotten, uninteresting.... + + * * * * * + +They fell upon the soft caviare greedily, and devoured it in a minute. + + * * * * * + +In the middle of a serious conversation he says to his little son: +"Button up your trousers." + + * * * * * + +Man will only become better when you make him see what he is like. + + * * * * * + +Dove-colored face. + + * * * * * + +The squire feeds his pigeons, canaries, and fowls on pepper, acids, +and all kinds of rubbish in order that the birds may change their +color--and that is his sole occupation: he boasts of it to every +visitor. + + * * * * * + +They invited a famous singer to recite the Acts of the Apostles at the +wedding; he recited it, but they have not paid his fee. + + * * * * * + +For a farce: I have a friend by name Krivomordy (crooked face) and +he's all right. Not crooked leg or crooked arm but crooked face: he +was married and his wife loved him. + + * * * * * + +N. drank milk every day, and every time he put a fly in the glass and +then, with the air of a victim, asked the old butler: "What's that?" +He could not live a single day without that. + + * * * * * + +She is surly and smells of a vapor bath. + + * * * * * + +N. learned of his wife's adultery. He is indignant, distressed, but +hesitates and keeps silent. He keeps silence and ends by borrowing +money from Z., the lover, and continues to consider himself an honest +man. + + * * * * * + +When I stop drinking tea and eating bread and butter, I say: "I have +had enough." But when I stop reading poems or novels, I say: "No more +of that, no more of that." + + * * * * * + +A solicitor lends money at a high rate of interest, and justifies +himself because he is leaving everything to the University of Moscow. + + * * * * * + +A little sexton, with radical views: "Nowadays our fellows crawl out +from all sorts of unexpected holes." + + * * * * * + +The squire N. always quarrels with his neighbors who are Molokans[1]; +he goes to court, abuses and curses them; but when at last they leave, +he feels there is an empty place; he ages rapidly and pines away. + +[Footnote 1: Molokans are a religious sect in Russia.] + + * * * * * + +Mordukhanov. + + * * * * * + +With N. and his wife there lives the wife's brother, a lachrymose +young man who at one time steals, at another tells lies, at another +attempts suicide; N. and his wife do not know what to do, they are +afraid to turn him out because he might kill himself; they would like +to turn him out, but they do not know how to manage it. For forging +a bill he gets into prison, and N. and his wife feel that they are to +blame; they cry, grieve. She died from grief; he too died some time +later and everything was left to the brother who squandered it and got +into prison again. + + * * * * * + +Suppose I had to marry a woman and live in her house, I would run away +in two days, but a woman gets used so quickly to her husband's house, +as though she had been born there. + + * * * * * + +Well, you are a Councillor; but whom do you counsel? God forbid that +any one should listen to your counsels. + + * * * * * + +The little town of Torjok. A sitting of the town council. Subject: the +raising of the rates. Decision: to invite the Pope to settle down in +Torjok--to choose it as his residence. + + * * * * * + +S.'s logic: I am for religious toleration, but against religious +freedom; one cannot allow what is not in the strict sense orthodox. + + * * * * * + +St. Piony and Epinach. ii March, Pupli 13 m. + + * * * * * + +Poetry and works of art contain not what is needed but what people +desire; they do not go further than the crowd and they express only +what the best in the crowd desire. + + * * * * * + +A little man is very cautious; he sends even letters of congratulation +by registered post in order to get a receipt. + + * * * * * + +Russia is an enormous plain across which wander mischievous men. + + * * * * * + +Platonida Ivanovna. + + * * * * * + +If you are politically sound, that is enough for you to be considered +a perfectly satisfactory citizen; the same thing with radicals, to be +politically unsound is enough, everything else will be ignored. + + * * * * * + +A man who when he fails opens his eyes wide. + + * * * * * + +Ziuzikov. + + * * * * * + +A Councillor of State, a respectable man; it suddenly comes out that +he has secretly kept a brothel. + + * * * * * + +N. has written a good play; no one praises him or is pleased; they all +say: "We'll see what you write next." + + * * * * * + +The more important people came in by the front door, the simple folk +by the back door. + + * * * * * + +He: "And in our town there lived a man whose name was Kishmish +(raisin). He called himself Kishmish, but every one knew that he was +Kishmish." + +She (after some thought): "How annoying ... if only his name had been +Sultana, but Kishmish!..." + + * * * * * + +Blagovospitanny. + + * * * * * + +Most honored Iv-Iv-itch! + + * * * * * + +How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in +everything. + + * * * * * + +They begin gossiping that N. is living with Z.; little by little +an atmosphere is created in which a liaison of N. and Z. becomes +inevitable. + + * * * * * + +When the locust was a plague, I wrote against the locust and enchanted +every one, I was rich and famous; but now, when the locust has long +ago disappeared and is forgotten, I am merged in the crowd, forgotten, +and not wanted. + + * * * * * + +Merrily, joyfully: "I have the honor to introduce you to Iv. Iv. +Izgoyev, my wife's lover." + + * * * * * + +Everywhere on the estate are notices: "Trespassers will be +prosecuted," "Keep off the flowers," etc. + + * * * * * + +In the great house is a fine library which is talked about but is +never used; they give you watery coffee which you cannot drink; the +garden is tasteless with no flowers in it--and they pretend that all +this is something Tolstoian. + + * * * * * + +He learnt Swedish in order to study Ibsen, spent a lot of time and +trouble, and suddenly realized that Ibsen is not important; he could +not conceive what use he could now make of the Swedish language.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Ibsen wrote in Norwegian of course. Responding to +a request for his interpretation of this curious paragraph. Mr. +Koteliansky writes: + +"Chekhov had a very high opinion of Ibsen; the paragraph, I am sure, +is by no means aimed at Ibsen. Most probably the paragraph, as well as +many others in the Notes, is something which C. either personally or +indirectly heard someone say. You will see that Kuprin ["Reminiscences +of Chekhov," by Gorky, Kuprin and Bunin, New York: Huebsch.] told C. +the anecdote about the actor whose wife asked him to whistle a melody +on the stage during a rehearsal. In C.'s Notes you have that anecdote, +somewhat shortened and the names changed, without mentioning the +source." + +"The reader, on the whole, may puzzle his head over many paragraphs +in the Notes, but he will hardly find explanations each time. What the +reader has to remember is that the Notes are material used by C. in +his creative activity and as such it throws a great deal of light on +C.'s mentality and process of working."] + + * * * * * + +N. makes a living by exterminating bugs; and for the purposes of his +trade he reads the works of ----. If in "The Cossacks," bugs are not +mentioned, it means that "The Cossacks" is a bad book. + + * * * * * + +Man is what he believes. + + * * * * * + +A clever girl: "I cannot pretend ... I never tell a lie ... I have +principles"--and all the time "I ... I ... I ..." + + * * * * * + +N. is angry with his wife who is an actress, and without her knowledge +gets abusive criticisms published about her in the newspapers. + + * * * * * + +A nobleman boasts "This house of mine was built in the time of Dmitry +Donskoy." + + * * * * * + +"Your Worship, he called my dog a bad name: 'son of a bitch.'" + + * * * * * + +The snow fell and did not lie on the ground reddened with blood. + + * * * * * + +He left everything to charity, so that nothing should go to his +relations and children, whom he hated. + + * * * * * + +A very amorous man; he is no sooner introduced to a girl than he +becomes a he-goat. + + * * * * * + +A nobleman Drekoliev. + + * * * * * + +I dread the idea that a chamberlain will be present at the opening of +my petition. + + * * * * * + +He was a rationalist, but he had to confess that he liked the ringing +of church bells. + + * * * * * + +The father a famous general, nice pictures, expensive furniture; he +died; the daughters received a good education, but are slovenly, read +little, ride, and are dull. + + * * * * * + +They are honest and truthful so long as it is unnecessary. + + * * * * * + +A rich merchant would like to have a shower bath in his W.C. + + * * * * * + +In the early morning they ate _okroshka_.[1] + +[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. + + * * * * * + +Zievoulia.[1] + +[Footnote 1: A name or word invented by Chekhov meaning "One who yawns +for a long time with pleasure."] + + * * * * * + +The crying of a nice child is ugly; so in bad verses you may recognize +that the author is a nice man. + + * * * * * + +If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to +wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him. + + * * * * * + +I arrive at Yalta. Every room is engaged. I go to the "Italy"--not +a room available. "What about my room number 35"--"It is engaged." A +lady. They say: "Would you like to stay with this lady? The lady has +no objection." I stay in her room. Conversation. Evening. The Tartar +guide comes in. My ears are stopped, my eyes blindfolded; I sit and +see nothing and hear nothing.... + + * * * * * + +A young lady complains: "My poor brother gets such a small +salary--only seven thousand!" + + * * * * * + +She: "I see only one thing now: you have a large mouth! A large mouth! +An enormous mouth!" + + * * * * * + +The horse is a useless and pernicious animal; a great deal of land has +to be tilled for it, it accustoms man not to employ his own muscles, +it is often an object of luxury; it makes man effeminate. For the +future not a single horse. + + * * * * * + +N. a singer; speaks to nobody, his throat muffled up--he takes care of +his voice, but no one has ever heard him sing. + + * * * * * + +About absolutely everything: "What's the good of that? It's useless!" + + * * * * * + +He wears felt boots summer and winter and gives this explanation: +"It's better for the head, because the blood, owing to the heat, is +drawn down into the feet, and the thoughts are clearer." + + * * * * * + +A woman is jocularly called Fiodor Ivanovitch. + + * * * * * + +A farce: N., in order to marry, greased the bald patch on his head +with an ointment which he read of in an advertisement, and suddenly +there began to grow on his head pig's bristles. + + * * * * * + +What does your husband do?--He takes castor oil. + + * * * * * + +A girl writes: "We shall live intolerably near you." + + * * * * * + +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 naive 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. + + * * * * * + +Haemorrhage: "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. + + * * * * * + +A grumbler: "But is turkey food? Is caviare food?" + + * * * * * + +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 fiancee 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." + + * * * * * + +Whatever happens, he says: "It is the priests." + + * * * * * + +Firzikov. + + * * * * * + +N. dreams that he is returning from abroad, and that at Verzhbolovo, +in spite of his protests, they make him pay duty on his wife. + + * * * * * + +When that radical, having dined with his coat off, walked into his +bedroom and I saw the braces on his back, it became clear to me that +that radical is a bourgeois, a hopeless bourgeois. + + * * * * * + +Some one saw Z., an unbeliever and blasphemer, secretly praying in +front of the icon in the cathedral, and they all teased him. + + * * * * * + +They called the manager "four-funneled cruiser," because he had +already gone "through the chimney" (bankrupt) four times. + + * * * * * + +He is not stupid, he was at the university, has studied long and +assiduously, but in writing he makes gross mistakes. + + * * * * * + +Countess Nadin's daughter gradually turns into a housekeeper; she is +very timid, and can only say "No-o," "Yes-s," and her hands always +tremble. Somehow or other a Zemstvo official wished to marry her; he +is a widower and she marries him, with him too it was "Yes-s," "No-o"; +she was very much afraid of her husband and did not love him; one day +he happened to give a loud cough, it gave her a fright, and she died. + + * * * * * + +Caressing her lover: "My vulture." + + * * * * * + +For a play: If only you would say something funny. But for twenty +years we have lived together and you have always talked of serious +things; I hate serious things. + + * * * * * + +A cook, with a cigarette in her mouth, lies: "I studied at a high +school ... I know what for the earth is round." + + * * * * * + +"Society for finding and raising anchors of steamers and barges," and +the Society's agent at all functions without fail makes a speech, a la +N., and without fail promises. + + * * * * * + +Super-mysticism. + + * * * * * + +When I become rich, I shall have a harem in which I shall keep fat +naked women, with their buttocks painted green. + + * * * * * + +A shy young man came on a visit for the night: suddenly a deaf old +woman came into his room, carrying a cupping-glass, and bled him; he +thought that this must be the usual thing and so did not protest; in +the morning it turned out that the old woman had made a mistake. + + * * * * * + +Surname: Verstax. + + * * * * * + +The more stupid the peasant, the better does the horse understand him. + + + + +THEMES, THOUGHTS, NOTES, AND FRAGMENTS. + + +... How stupid and for the most part how false, since if one man seeks +to devour another or tell him something unpleasant it has nothing to +do with Granovsky.[1] + +[Footnote 1: A well-known Radical professor, a Westerner.] + + * * * * * + +I left Gregory Ivanovitch's feeling crushed and mortally offended. +I was irritated by smooth words and by those who speak them, and on +reaching home I meditated thus: some rail at the world, others at the +crowd, that is to say praise the past and blame the present; they cry +out that there are no ideals and so on, but all this has already been +said twenty or thirty years ago; these are worn-out forms which have +already served their time, and whoever repeats them now, he too is no +longer young and is himself worn out. With last year's foliage there +decay too those who live in it. I thought, we uncultured, worn-out +people, banal in speech, stereotyped in intentions, have grown quite +mouldy, and, while we intellectuals are rummaging among old rags and, +according to the old Russian custom, biting one another, there is +boiling up around us a life which we neither know nor notice. Great +events will take us unawares, like sleeping fairies, and you will see +that Sidorov, the merchant, and the teacher of the school at +Yeletz, who see and know more than we do, will push us far into the +background, because they will accomplish more than all of us put +together. And I thought that were we now to obtain political liberty, +of which we talk so much, while engaged in biting one another, we +should not know what to do with it, we should waste it in accusing one +another in the newspapers of being spies and money-grubbers, we should +frighten society with the assurance that we have neither men, nor +science, nor literature, nothing! Nothing! And to scare society as we +are doing now, and as we shall continue to do, means to deprive it +of courage; it means simply to declare that we have no social or +political sense in us. And I also thought that, before the dawn of a +new life has broken, we shall turn into sinister old men and women and +we shall be the first who, in our hatred of that dawn, will calumniate +it. + + * * * * * + +Mother never stops talking about poverty. It is very strange. In the +first place, it is strange that we are poor, beg like beggars, and at +the same time eat superbly, live in a large house; in the summer we go +to our own country house, and generally speaking we do not look like +beggars. Evidently this is not poverty, but something else, and rather +worse. Secondly, it is strange that for the last ten years mother has +been spending all her energy solely on getting money to pay interest. +It seems to me that were mother to spend that terrible energy on +something else, we could have twenty such houses. Thirdly, it seems to +me strange that the hardest work in the family is done by mother, not +by me. To me that is the strangest thing of all, most terrible. She +has, as she has just said, a thought on her brain, she begs, she +humiliates herself; our debts grow daily and up till now I have not +done a single thing to help her. What can I do? I think and think and +cannot make it out. I only see clearly that we are rushing down an +inclined plane, but to what, the devil knows. They say that poverty +threatens us and that in poverty there is disgrace, but that too I +cannot understand, since I was never poor. + + * * * * * + +The spiritual life of these women is as gray and dull as their faces +and dresses; they speak of science, literature, tendencies, and the +like, only because they are the wives and sisters of scholars and +literary men; were they the wives and sisters of inspectors or of +dentists, they would speak with the same zeal of fires or teeth. +To allow them to speak of science, which is foreign to them, and to +listen to them, is to flatter their ignorance. + + * * * * * + +Essentially all this is crude and meaningless, and romantic love +appears as meaningless as an avalanche which involuntarily rolls down +a mountain and overwhelms people. But when one listens to music, all +this is: that some people lie in their graves and sleep, and that one +woman is alive--gray-haired, she is sitting in a box in the theatre, +quiet and majestic, and the avalanche seems no longer meaningless, +since in nature everything has a meaning. And everything is forgiven, +and it would be strange not to forgive. + + * * * * * + +Olga Ivanovna regarded old chairs, stools, sofas, with the same +respectful tenderness as she regarded old dogs and horses, and her +room, therefore, was something like an alms-house for furniture. +Round the mirror, on all tables and shelves, stood photographs of +uninteresting, half-forgotten people; on the walls hung pictures at +which nobody ever looked; and it was always dark in the room, because +there burnt there only one lamp with a blue shade. + + * * * * * + +If you cry "Forward," you must without fail explain in which direction +one must go. Do you not see that, if without explaining the +direction, you fire off this word simultaneously at a monk and at a +revolutionary, they will proceed in precisely opposite directions? + + * * * * * + +It is said in Holy Writ: "Fathers, do not irritate your children," +even the wicked and good-for-nothing children; but the fathers +irritate me, irritate me terribly. My contemporaries chime in with +them and the youngsters follow, and every minute they strike me in the +face with their smooth words. + + * * * * * + +That the aunt suffered and did not show it gave him the impression of +a trick. + + * * * * * + +O.I. was in constant motion; such women, like bees, carry about a +fertilizing pollen.... + + * * * * * + +Don't marry a rich woman--she will drive you out of the house; don't +marry a poor woman--you won't sleep; but marry the freest freedom, the +lot and life of a Cossack. (Ukrainian saying.) + + * * * * * + +_Aliosha_: "I often hear people say: 'Before marriage there is +romance, and then--goodbye, illusion!' How heartless and coarse it +is." + + * * * * * + +So long as a man likes the splashing of a fish, he is a poet; but when +he knows that the splashing is nothing but the chase of the weak by +the strong, he is a thinker; but when he does not understand what +sense there is in the chase, or what use in the equilibrium which +results from destruction, he is becoming silly and dull, as he +was when a child. And the more he knows and thinks, the sillier he +becomes. + + * * * * * + +_The death of a child_. I have no sooner sat down in peace +than--bang--fate lets fly at me. + + * * * * * + +The she-wolf, nervous and anxious, fond of her young, dragged away a +foal into her winter-shelter, thinking him a lamb. She knew that there +was a ewe there and that the ewe had young. While she was dragging +the foal away, suddenly some one whistled; she was alarmed and dropped +him, but he followed her. They arrived at the shelter. He began to +suck like the young wolves. Throughout the winter he changed but +little; he only grew thin and his legs longer, and the spot on +his forehead turned into a triangle. The she-wolf was in delicate +health.[1] + +[Footnote 1: A sketch of part of the story "Whitehead."] + + * * * * * + +They invited celebrities to these evening parties, and it was dull +because there are few people of talent in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at all evening parties. + + * * * * * + +She has not before felt herself so free and easy with a man. + + * * * * * + +You wait until you grow up and I'll teach you declamation. + + * * * * * + +It seemed to her that at the show many of the pictures were alike. + + * * * * * + +There filed up before you a whole line of laundry-maids. + + * * * * * + +Kostya insisted that the women had robbed themselves. + + * * * * * + +L. put himself in the place of the juryman and interpreted it thus: if +it was a case of house-breaking, then there was no theft, because the +laundresses themselves sold the linen and spent the money on +drink; but if it was a case of theft, then there could have been no +house-breaking. + + * * * * * + +Fiodor was flattered that his brother had found him at the same table +with a famous actor. + + * * * * * + +When Y. spoke or ate, his beard moved as if he had no teeth in his +mouth. + + * * * * * + +Ivashin loved Nadya Vishnyevsky and was afraid of his love. When the +butler told him that the old lady had just gone out, but the young +lady was at home, he fumbled in his fur coat and dress-coat pocket, +found his card, and said: "Right." + +But it was not all right. Driving from his house in the morning, to +pay a visit, he thought that he was compelled to it by conventions of +society, which weighed heavily upon him. But now it was clear to +him that he went to pay calls only because somewhere far away in the +depths of his soul, as under a veil, there lay hidden a hope that he +would see Nadya.... And he suddenly felt pitiful, sad, and a little +frightened.... + + * * * * * + +In his soul, it seemed to him, it was snowing, and everything faded +away. He was afraid to love Nadya, because he was too old for her, +thought his appearance unattractive, and did not believe that +young girls like Nadya could love men for their minds and spiritual +qualities. Still there would at times rise in him something like a +hope. But now, from the moment when the officer's spurs jingled and +then died away, there also died away his timid love.... All was at an +end, hope was impossible.... "Yes, now all is finished," he thought, +"I am glad, very glad." + + * * * * * + +He imagined his wife to be not Nadya, but always, for some reason, a +stout woman with a large bosom, covered with Venetian lace. + + * * * * * + +The clerks in the office of the Governor of the island have a drunken +headache. They long for a drink. They have no money. What is to be +done? One of them, a convict who is serving his time here for forgery, +devises a plan. He goes to the church, where a former officer, now +exiled for giving his superior a box on the ears, sings in the choir, +and says to him panting: "Here! There's a pardon come for you! They +have got a telegram in the office." + +The late officer turns pale, trembles, and can hardly walk for +excitement. + +"But for such news you ought to give something for a drink," says the +clerk. + +"Take all I have! All!" + +And he hands him some five roubles.... He arrives at the office. The +officer is afraid that he may die from joy and presses his hand to his +heart. + +"Where is the telegram?" + +"The bookkeeper has put it away." (He goes to the bookkeeper.) General +laughter and an invitation to drink with them. + +"How terrible!" + +After that the officer was ill for a week.[1] + +[Footnote 1: An episode which Chekhov heard during his journey in the +island, Saghalien.] + + * * * * * + +Fedya, the steward's brother-in-law, told Ivanov that wild-duck were +feeding on the other side of the wood. He loaded his gun with slugs. +Suddenly a wolf appeared. He fired and smashed both the wolf's hips. +The wolf was mad with pain and did not see him. "What can I do for +you, dear?" He thought and thought, and then went home and called +Peter.... Peter took a stick, and with an awful grimace, began to beat +the wolf.... He beat and beat and beat until it died.... He broke into +a sweat and went away, without saying a single word. + + * * * * * + +_Vera_: "I do not respect you, because you married so strangely, +because nothing came of you.... That is why I have secrets from you." + + * * * * * + +It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions +cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should +seek a simple solution. + + * * * * * + +There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday. + + * * * * * + +I am happy and satisfied, sister, but if I were born a second time +and were asked: "Do you want to marry?" I should answer: "No." "Do you +want to have money?" "No...." + + * * * * * + +Lenstchka liked dukes and counts in novels, not ordinary persons. She +loved the chapters in which there is love, pure and ideal not sensual. +Descriptions of nature she did not like. She preferred conversations +to descriptions. While reading the beginning she would glance +impatiently at the end. She did not remember the names of authors. +She wrote with a pencil in the margins: "Wonderful!" "Beautiful!" or +"Serve him right!" + + * * * * * + +Lenstchka sang without opening her mouth. + + * * * * * + +_Post coitum_: We Balderiovs always excelled in vigor and health. + + * * * * * + +He drove in a cab, and, as he watched his son walking away, thought: +"Perhaps, he belongs to the race of men who will no longer trundle in +scurvy cabs, as I do, but will fly through the skies in balloons." + + * * * * * + +She is so beautiful that it is even frightening; dark eye-brows. + + * * * * * + +The son says nothing, but the wife feels him to be an enemy; she feels +that he has overheard everything.... + + * * * * * + +What a lot of idiots there are among ladies. People get so used to it +that they do not notice it. + + * * * * * + +They often go to the theatre and read serious magazines--and yet are +spiteful and immoral. + + * * * * * + +_Nat_: "I never have fits of hysterics. I am not a pampered +darling."[1] + +[Footnote 1: This and the following few passages are from the rough +draft of Chekhov's play _Three Sisters_.] + + * * * * * + +_Nat_: (continually to her sisters): "O, how ugly you have grown. O, +how old you do look!" + + * * * * * + +To live one must have something to hang on to.... In the provinces +only the body works, not the spirit. + + * * * * * + +You won't become a saint through other people's sins. + + * * * * * + +_Koulyguin_: "I am a jolly fellow, I infect every one with my mood." + + * * * * * + +_Koul_. Gives lessons at rich houses. + + * * * * * + +_Koul_. In Act IV without mustaches. + + * * * * * + +The wife implores the husband: "Don't get fat." + + * * * * * + +O if there were a life in which every one grew younger and more +beautiful. + + * * * * * + +_Irene_: "It is hard to live without a father, without a +mother."--"And without a husband."--"Yes, without a husband. Whom +could one confide in? To whom could one complain? With whom could one +share ones's joy? One must love some one strongly." + + * * * * * + +_Koulyguin_ (to his wife): "I am so happy to be married to you, that +I consider it ungentlemanly and improper to speak of or even mention a +dowry. Hush, don't say anything...." + + * * * * * + +The doctor enjoys being at the duel. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult to live without orderlies. You cannot make the +servants answer your bell. + + * * * * * + +The 2nd, 3rd, and 6th companies left at 4, and we leave at 12 +sharp.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Here the fragments from the rough draft of _Three +Sisters_ end.] + + * * * * * + +In the daytime conversations about the loose manners of the girls in +secondary schools, in the evening a lecture on degeneration and the +decline of everything, and at night, after all this, one longs to +shoot oneself. + + * * * * * + +In the life of our towns there is no pessimism, no Marxism, and no +movements, but there is stagnation, stupidity, mediocrity. + + * * * * * + +He had a thirst for life, but it seemed to him to mean that he wanted +a drink--and he drank wine. + + * * * * * + +F. in the town-hall: Serguey Nik. in a plaintive voice: "Gentlemen, +where can we get the means? Our town is poor." + + * * * * * + +To be idle involuntarily means to listen to what is being said, to see +what is being done; but he who works and is occupied hears little and +sees little. + + * * * * * + +In the skating rink he raced after L.; he wanted to overtake her and +it seemed as if it were life which he wanted to overtake, that life +which one cannot bring back or overtake or catch, just as one cannot +catch one's shadow. + + * * * * * + +Only one thought reconciled him to the doctor: just as he had suffered +from the doctor's ignorance, so perhaps some one was suffering from +his mistakes. + + * * * * * + +But isn't it strange? In the whole town there is not a single +musician, not a single orator, not a prominent man. + + * * * * * + +Honorable Justice of the Peace, Honorable Member of the Children's +Shelter--all honorable. + + * * * * * + +L. studied and studied--but people who had finished developing could +not understand her, nor could the young. _Ut consecutivum_. + + * * * * * + +He is dark, with little side-whiskers, dressed like a dandy, dark +eyes, a warm brunet. He exterminates bugs, talks about earthquakes and +China. His fiancee has a dowry of 8,000 roubles; she is very handsome, +as her aunt says. He is an agent for a fire-insurance company, etc. +"You're awfully pretty, my darling, awfully. And 8,000 into the +bargain! You are a beauty; when I looked at you to-day, a shiver ran +down my back." + + * * * * * + +_He_: Earthquakes are caused by the evaporation of water. + + * * * * * + +Names: Goose, Pan, Oyster. + +"Were I abroad, they would give me a medal for such a surname." + + * * * * * + +I can't be said to be handsome, but I am rather pretty. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTE-BOOK OF ANTON CHEKHOV*** + + +******* This file should be named 12494.txt or 12494.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/4/9/12494 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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