Part 8 (1/2)

Russia is a n.o.body's country!

Z. who is always saying ba.n.a.l things: ”With the agility of a bear,”

”on one's favorite corn.”

A savings bank: the clerk, a very nice man, looks down on the bank, considers it useless--and yet goes on working there.

A radical lady, who crosses herself at night, is secretly full of prejudice and superst.i.tion, hears that in order to be happy one should boil a black cat by night. She steals a cat and tries to boil it.

A publisher's twenty-fifth anniversary. Tears, a speech: ”I offer ten roubles to the literary fund, the interest to be paid to the poorest writer, but on condition that a special committee is appointed to work out the rules according to which the distribution shall be made.”

He wore a blouse and despised those who wore frock coats. A stew of trousers.

The ice cream is made of milk in which, as it were, the patients bathed.

It was a grand forest of timber, but a Government Conservator was appointed, and in two years time there was no more timber; the caterpillar pest.

X.: ”Choleraic disorder in my stomach started with the cider.”

Of some writers each work taken separately is brilliant, but taken as a whole they are indefinite; of others each particular work represents nothing outstanding; but, for all that, taken as a whole they are distinct and brilliant.

N. rings at the door of an actress; he is nervous, his heart beats, at the critical moment he gets into a panic and runs away; the maid opens the door and sees n.o.body. He returns, rings again--but has not the courage to go in. In the end the porter comes out and gives him a thras.h.i.+ng.

A gentle quiet schoolmistress secretly beats her pupils, because she believes in the good of corporal punishment.

N.: ”Not only the dog, but even the horses howled.”