Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (613 page)

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By his remarks on Strindberg and literature generally L.L. Tolstoi reminds one very much of Madam Loukhmav.

[Footnote 1: L.L. Tolstoi was Leo Nicolaievitch’a son, Madame Loukhmav a tenth rate woman-writer.]

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Diedlov, when he speaks of the Deputy Governor or the Governor, becomes a romanticist, remembering “The Arrival of the Deputy Governor” in the book
A Hundred Russian Writers
.

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A play: the Bean of Life.

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A vet. belongs to the stallion class of people.

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Consultation.

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The sun shines and in my soul is darkness.

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In S. I made the acquaintance of the barrister Z. — a sort of Nika, The Fair … He has several children; with all of them he is magisterial, gentle, kind, not a single rude word; I soon learn that he has another family. Then he invites me to his daughter’s wedding; he prays, makes a genuflection, and says: “I still preserve religious feeling; I am a believer.” And when in his presence people speak of education, of women, he has a naïve expression, exactly as if he did not understand. When he makes a speech in Court, his face looks as if he were praying.

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“Mammy, don’t show yourself to the guests, you are very fat.”

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Love? In love? Never! I am a Government clerk.

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He knows little, even as a babe who has not yet come out of his mother’s womb.

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From childhood until extreme old age N. has had a passion for spying.

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He uses clever words, that’s all — philosophy … equator … (for a play).

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The stars have gone out long ago, but they still shine for the crowd.

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As soon as he became a scholar, he began to expect honors.

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He was a prompter, but got disgusted and gave it up; for about fifteen years he did not go to the theatre; then he went and saw a play, cried with emotion, felt sad, and, when his wife asked him on his return how he liked the theatre, he answered: “I do not like it.”

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The parlormaid Nadya fell in love with an exterminator of bugs and black beetles.

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A Councillor of State; it came out after his death that, in order to earn a rouble, he was employed at the theatre to bark like a dog; he was poor.

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You must have decent, well-dressed children, and your children too must have a nice house and children, and their children again children and nice houses; and what is it all for? — The devil knows.

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Perkaturin.

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Every day he forces himself to vomit — for the sake of his health, on the advice of a friend.

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A Government official began to live an original life; a very tall chimney on his house, green trousers, blue waistcoat, a dyed dog, dinner at midnight; after a week he gave it up.

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Success has already given that man a lick with its tongue.

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In the bill presented by the hotel-keeper: was among other things:
“Bugs — fifteen kopecks.” Explanation.

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“N. has fallen into poverty.” — “What? I can’t hear.” — “I say N. has fallen into poverty.” — “What exactly do you say? I can’t make out. What N.?” — “The N. who married Z.” — “Well, what of it?” — “I say we ought to help him.” — “Eh? What him? Why help? What do you mean?” — and so on.

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How pleasant to sit at home, when the rain is drumming on the roof, and to feel that there are no heavy dull guests coming to one’s house.

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N. always even after five glasses of wine, takes valerian drops.

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He lives with a parlormaid who respectfully calls him Your Honor.

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I rented a country house for the summer; the owner, a very fat old lady, lived in the lodge, I in the great house; her husband was dead and so were all her children, she was left alone, very fat, the estate sold for debt, her furniture old and in good taste; all day long she reads letters which her husband and son had written to her. Yet she is an optimist. When some one fell ill in my house, she smiled and said again and again: “My dear, God will help.”

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N. and Z. are school friends, each seventeen or eighteen years old; and suddenly N. learns that Z. is with child by N.’s father.

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The priezt came … zaint … praize to thee, O Lord.

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What empty words these discussions about the rights of women! If a dog writes a work of talent, they will even accept the dog.

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Hæmorrhage: “It’s an abscess that’s just burst inside you … it’s all right, have some more vodka.”

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The intelligentsia are good for nothing, because they drink a lot of tea, talk a lot in stuffy rooms, with empty bottles.

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When she was young, she ran away with a doctor, a Jew, and had a daughter by him; now she hates her past, hates the red-haired daughter, and the father still loves her as well as the daughter, and walks under her window, chubby and handsome.

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He picked his teeth and put the toothpick back into the glass.

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The husband and wife could not sleep; they began to discuss how bad literature had become and how nice it would be to publish a magazine: the idea carried them away; they lay awake silent for awhile. “Shall we ask Boborykin to write?” he asked. “Certainly, do ask him.” At five in the morning he starts for his work at the depot; she sees him off walking in the snow to the gate, shuts the gate after him…. “And shall we ask Potapenko?” he asks, already outside the gate.

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When he learnt that his father had been raised to the nobility he began to sign himself Alexis.

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Teacher: “‘The collision of a train with human victims’ … that is wrong … it ought to be ‘the collision of a train that resulted in human victims’ … for the cause of the people on the line.”

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Title of play: Golden Rain.

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There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human.

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A patriot: “And do you know that our Russian macaroni is better than the Italian? I’ll prove it to you. Once at Nice they brought me sturgeon — do you know, I nearly cried.” And the patriot did not see that he was only gastronomically patriotic.

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A grumbler: “But is turkey food? Is caviare food?”

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A very sensible, clever young woman; when she was bathing, he noticed that she had a narrow pelvis and pitifully thin hips — and he got to hate her.

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A clock. Yegor the locksmith’s clock at one time loses and at another gains exactly as if to spite him; deliberately it is now at twelve and then quite suddenly at eight. It does it out of animosity as though the devil were in it. The locksmith tries to find out the cause, and once he plunges it in holy water.

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Formerly the heroes in novels and stories (e.g. Petchorin, Onyeguin) were twenty years old, but now one cannot have a hero under thirty to thirty-five years. The same will soon happen with heroines.

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N. is the son of a famous father; he is very nice, but, whatever he does, every one says: “That is very well, but it is nothing to the father.” Once he gave a recitation at an evening party; all the performers had a success, but of him they said: “That is very well, but still it is nothing to the father.” He went home and got into bed and, looking at his father’s portrait, shook his fist at him.

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We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: “In the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past.”

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My motto: I don’t want anything.

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When a decent working-man takes himself and his work critically, people call him grumbler, idler, bore; but when an idle scoundrel shouts that it is necessary to work, he is applauded.

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When a woman destroys things like a man, people think it natural and everybody understands it; but when like a man, she wishes or tries to create, people think it unnatural and cannot reconcile themselves to it.

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When I married, I became an old woman.

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He looked down on the world from the height of his baseness.

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“Your fiancée is very pretty.” “To me all women are alike.”

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He dreamt of winning three hundred thousand in lottery, twice in succession, because three hundred thousand would not be enough for him.

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N., a retired Councillor of State, lives in the country; he is sixty-six. He is educated, liberal-minded, reads, likes an argument. He learns from his guests that the new coroner Z. walks about with a slipper on one foot and a boot on the other, and lives with another man’s wife. N. thinks all the time of Z.; he does nothing but talk about him, how he walks about in one slipper and lives with another man’s wife; he talks of nothing else; at last he goes to sleep with his own wife (he has not slept with her for the last eight years), he is agitated and the whole time talks about Z. Finally he has a stroke, his arm and leg are paralyzed — and all this from agitation about Z. The doctor comes. With him too N. talks about Z. The doctor says that he knows Z., that Z. now wears two boots, his leg being well, and that he has married the lady.

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I hope that in the next world I shall be able to look back at this life and say: “Those were beautiful dreams….”

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The squire N., looking at the undergraduate and the young girl, the children of his steward Z.: “I am sure Z. steals from me, lives grandly on stolen money, the undergraduate and the girl know it or ought to know it; why then do they look so decent?”