Note-Book of Anton Chekhov Part 6

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.