Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (610 page)

[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
.

[Footnote 1: The word means five kopecks and also a pig’s snout.]

* * * * *

Zolotonosha? 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.

[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
.”

[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.”

[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.