Note-Book of Anton Chekhov Part 17

His beard looked like the tail of a fish.

A Jew, Ziptchik.

A girl, when she giggles, makes noises as if she were putting her head in cold water.

"Mamma, what is a thunderbolt made of?"

On the estate there is a bad smell, and bad taste; the trees are planted anyhow, stupidly; and away in a remote corner the lodge-keeper's wife all day long washes the guest's linen--and n.o.body sees her; and the owners are allowed to talk away whole days about their rights and their n.o.bility.

She fed her dog on the best caviare.

Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.

A black dog--he looks as if he were wearing goloshes.

A Russian's only hope--to win two hundred thousand roubles in a lottery.

She is wicked, but she taught her children good.

Every one has something to hide.

The t.i.tle of N.'s story: The Power of Harmonies.

O how nice it would be if bachelors or widowers were appointed Governors.

A Moscow actress never in her life saw a turkey-hen.

On the lips of the old I hear either stupidity or malice.

"Mamma, Pete did not say his prayers." Pete is woken up, he says his prayers, cries, then lies down and shakes his fist at the child who made the complaint.

He imagined that only doctors could say whether it is male or female.

One became a priest, the other a _Dukhobor_, the third a philosopher, and in each case instinctively because no one wants really to work with bent back from morning to night.

A pa.s.sion for the word uterine: my uterine brother, my uterine wife, my uterine brother-in-law, etc.

To Doctor N., an illegitimate child, who has never lived with his father and knew him very little, his bosom friend Z., says with agitation: "You see, the fact of the matter is that your father misses you very much, he is ill and wants to have a look at you." The father keeps "Switzerland," furnished apartments. He takes the fried fish out of the dish with his hands and only afterwards uses a fork. The vodka smells rank. N. went, looked about him, had dinner--his only feeling that that fat peasant, with the grizzled beard, should sell such filth. But once, when pa.s.sing the house at midnight, he looked in at the window: his father was sitting with bent back reading a book. He recognized himself and his own manners.

As stupid as a gray gelding.

They teased the girl with castor oil, and therefore she did not marry.

N. all his life used to write abusive letters to famous singers, actors, and authors: "You think, you scamp,..."--without signing his name.

When the man who carried the torch at funerals came out in his three-cornered hat, his frock coat with laces and stripes, she fell in love with him.

A sparkling, joyous nature, a kind of living protest against grumblers; he is fat and healthy, eats a great deal, every one likes him but only because they are afraid of the grumblers; he is a n.o.body, a Ham, only eats and laughs loud, and that's all; when he dies, every one sees that he had done nothing, that they had mistaken him for some one else.