Part 3 (2/2)

A government clerk gave his son a thras.h.i.+ng because he had only obtained five marks in all his subjects at school. It seemed to him not good enough. When he was told that he was in the wrong, that five is the highest mark obtainable, he thrashed his son again--out of vexation with himself.

A very good man has such a face that people take him for a detective; he is suspected of having stolen s.h.i.+rt-studs.

A serious phlegmatic doctor fell in love with a girl who danced very well, and, to please her, he started to learn a mazurka.

The hen sparrow believes that her c.o.c.k sparrow is not chirping but singing beautifully.

When one is peacefully at home, life seems ordinary, but as soon as one walks into the street and begins to observe, to question women, for instance, then life becomes terrible. The neighborhood of Patriars.h.i.+ Prudy (a park and street in Moscow) looks quiet and peaceful, but in reality life there is h.e.l.l.

These red-faced young and old women are so healthy that steam seems to exhale from them.

The estate will soon be brought under the hammer; there is poverty all round; and the footmen are still dressed like jesters.

There has been an increase not in the number of nervous diseases and nervous patients, but in the number of doctors able to study those diseases.

The more refined the more unhappy.

Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness which is not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable.

The grandfather is given fish to eat, and if it does not poison him and he remains alive, then all the family eat it.

A correspondence. A young man dreams of devoting himself to literature and constantly writes to his father about it; at last he gives up the civil service, goes to Petersburg, and devotes himself to literature--he becomes a censor.

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