Part 21 (2/2)

She: ”I see only one thing now: you have a large mouth! A large mouth!

An enormous mouth!”

The horse is a useless and pernicious animal; a great deal of land has to be tilled for it, it accustoms man not to employ his own muscles, it is often an object of luxury; it makes man effeminate. For the future not a single horse.

N. a singer; speaks to n.o.body, his throat m.u.f.fled up--he takes care of his voice, but no one has ever heard him sing.

About absolutely everything: ”What's the good of that? It's useless!”

He wears felt boots summer and winter and gives this explanation: ”It's better for the head, because the blood, owing to the heat, is drawn down into the feet, and the thoughts are clearer.”

A woman is jocularly called Fiodor Ivanovitch.

A farce: N., in order to marry, greased the bald patch on his head with an ointment which he read of in an advertis.e.m.e.nt, and suddenly there began to grow on his head pig's bristles.

What does your husband do?--He takes castor oil.

A girl writes: ”We shall live intolerably near you.”

N. has been for long in love with Z. who married X.; two years after the marriage Z. comes to N., cries, wishes to tell him something; N.

expects to hear her complain against her husband; but it turns out that Z. has come to tell of her love for K.

N. a well known lawyer in Moscow; Z., who like N. was born in Taganrog, comes to Moscow and goes to see the celebrity; he is received warmly, but he remembers the school to which they both went, remembers how N. looked in his uniform, becomes agitated by envy, sees that N.'s flat is in bad taste, that N. himself talks a great deal; and he leaves disenchanted by envy and by the meanness which before he did not even suspect was in him.

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