Note-Book of Anton Chekhov Part 4

First cla.s.s sleeping car. Pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sably, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.ses--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.