Note-Book of Anton Chekhov Part 25

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 a.s.siduously, 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 b.u.t.tocks 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-gla.s.s, 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.