Mother: 'What?'
Son: (angry and offended) 'Bath!'
* * * * *
N. goes to X. every day, talks to him, and shows real sympathy in his grief; suddenly X. leaves his house, where he was so comfortable. N. asks X.'s mother why he went away. She answers: 'Because you came to see him every day.'
* * * * *
It was such a romantic wedding, and later—what fools! what babies!
* * * * *
Love. Either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something which once has been immense, or it is a particle of what will in the future develop into something immense; but in the present it is unsatisfying, it gives much less than one expects.
* * * * *
A very intellectual man all his life tells lies about hypnotism, spiritualism—and people believe him; yet he is quite a nice man.
* * * * *
In Act I, X., a respectable man, borrows a hundred roubles from N., and in the course of all four acts he does not pay it back.
* * * * *
A grandmother has six sons and three daughters, and best of all she loves the failure, who drinks and has been in prison.
* * * * *
N., the manager of a factory, rich, with a wife and children, happy, has written 'An investigation into the mineral spring at X.' He was much praised for it and was invited to join the staff of a newspaper; he gave up his post, went to Petersburg, divorced his wife, spent his money—and went to the dogs.
* * * * *
(Looking at a photograph album): 'Whose ugly face is that?'
'That's my uncle.'
* * * * *
Alas, what is terrible is not the skeletons, but the fact that I am no longer terrified by them.
* * * * *
A boy of good family, capricious, full of mischief, obstinate, wore out his whole family. The father, an official who played the piano, got to hate him, took him into a corner of the garden, flogged him with considerable pleasure, and then felt disgusted with himself. The son has grown up and is an officer.
* * * * *
N. courted Z. for a long time. She was very religious, and, when he proposed to her, she put a dried flower, which he had once given to her, into her prayer-book.
* * * * *
Z: 'As you are going to town, post my letter in the letter-box.'
N: (alarmed) 'Where? I don't know where the letter-box is.'
Z: 'Will you also call at the chemist's and get me some naphthaline?'
N: (alarmed) 'I'll forget the naphthaline, I'll forget.'
* * * * *
A storm at sea. Lawyers ought to regard it as a crime.
* * * * *
X. went to stay with his friend in the country. The place was magnificent, but the servants treated him badly, he was uncomfortable, although his friend considered him a big man. The bed was hard, he was not provided with a night shirt and he felt ashamed to ask for one.
* * * * *
At a rehearsal. The wife:
'How does that melody in Pagliacci go? Whistle it.'
'One must not whistle on the stage; the stage is a temple.'
* * * * *
He died from fear of cholera.
* * * * *
As like as a nail is to a requiem.
* * * * *
A conversation on another planet about the earth a thousand years hence. 'Do you remember that white tree?'
* * * * *
Anakhthema!
* * * * *
Zigzagovsky, Oslizin, Svintchulka, Derbaliguin.
* * * * *
A woman with money, the money hidden everywhere, in her bosom and between her legs….
* * * * *
All that procedure.
* * * * *
Treat your dismissal as you would an atmospheric phenomenon.
* * * * *
A conversation at a conference of doctors. First doctor: 'All diseases can be cured by salt.' Second doctor, military: 'Every disease can be cured by prescribing no salt.' The first points to his wife, the second to his daughter.
* * * * *
The mother has ideals, the father too; they delivered lectures; they built schools, museums, etc. They grow rich. And their children are most ordinary; spend money, gamble on the Stock Exchange.
* * * * *
N. married a German when she was seventeen. He took her to live in Berlin. At forty she became a widow and by that time spoke Russian badly and German badly.
* * * * *
The husband and wife loved having visitors, because, when there were no visitors they quarreled.
* * * * *
It is an absurdity! It is an anachronism!
* * * * *
'Shut the window! You are perspiring! Put on an overcoat! Put on goloshes!'
* * * * *
If you wish to have little spare time, do nothing.
* * * * *
On a Sunday morning in summer is heard the rumble of a carriage—people driving to mass.
* * * * *
For the first time in her life a man kissed her hand; it was too much for her, it turned her head.
* * * * *
What wonderful names: the little tears of Our Lady, warbler, crows-eyes.[1]
[Footnote 1: The names of flowers.]
* * * * *
A government forest officer with shoulder straps, who has never seen a forest.
* * * * *
A gentleman owns a villa near Mentone; he bought it out of the proceeds of the sale of his estate in the Tula province. I saw him in Kharkhov to which he had come on business; he gambled away the villa at cards and became
