Note-Book of Anton Chekhov Part 10

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 a.s.sistant 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s 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.