* * * * *
In the servants’ quarters Roman, a more or less dissolute peasant, thinks it his duty to look after the morals of the women servants.
* * * * *
A large fat barmaid—a cross between a pig and white sturgeon.
* * * * *
At Malo-Bronnaya (a street in Moscow). A little girl who has never been in the country feels it and raves about it, speaks about jackdaws, crows and colts, imagining parks and birds on trees.
* * * * *
Two young officers in stays.
* * * * *
A certain captain taught his daughter the art of fortification.
* * * * *
New literary forms always produce new forms of life and that is why they are so revolting to the conservative human mind.
* * * * *
A neurasthenic undergraduate comes home to a lonely country-house, reads French monologues, and finds them stupid.
* * * * *
People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives.
* * * * *
An official, who wore the portrait of the Governor’s wife, lent money on interest; he secretly becomes rich. The late Governor’s wife, whose portrait he has worn for fourteen years, now lives in a suburb, a poor widow; her son gets into trouble and she needs 4,000 roubles. She goes to the official, and he listens to her with a bored look and says: “I can’t do anything for you, my lady.”
* * * * *
Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid.
* * * * *
“New literary forms always produce new forms of life” (From Chekhov’s Note-Books)
Biblioklept 