t Kishmish!..."

* * * * *

Blagovospitanny.

* * * * *

Most honored Iv-Iv-itch!

* * * * *

How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in
everything.

* * * * *

They begin gossiping that N. is living with Z.; little by little
an atmosphere is created in which a liaison of N. and Z. becomes
inevitable.

* * * * *

When the locust was a plague, I wrote against the locust and enchanted
every one, I was rich and famous; but now, when the locust has long
ago disappeared and is forgotten, I am merged in the crowd, forgotten,
and not wanted.

* * * * *

Merrily, joyfully: "I have the honor to introduce you to Iv. Iv.
Izgoyev, my wife's lover."

* * * * *

Everywhere on the estate are notices: "Trespassers will be
prosecuted," "Keep off the flowers," etc.

* * * * *

In the great house is a fine library which is talked about but is
never used; they give you watery coffee which you cannot drink; the
garden is tasteless with no flowers in it--and they pretend that all
this is something Tolstoian.

* * * * *

He learnt Swedish in order to study Ibsen, spent a lot of time and
trouble, and suddenly realized that Ibsen is not important; he could
not conceive what use he could now make of the Swedish language.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibsen wrote in Norwegian of course. Responding to
a request for his interpretation of this curious paragraph. Mr.
Koteliansky writes:

"Chekhov had a very high opinion of Ibsen; the paragraph, I am sure,
is by no means aimed at Ibsen. Most probably the paragraph, as well as
many others in the Notes, is something which C. either personally or
indirectly heard someone say. You will see that Kuprin ["Reminiscences
of Chekhov," by Gorky, Kuprin and Bunin, New York: Huebsch.] told C.
the anecdote about the actor whose wife asked him to whistle a melody
on the stage during a rehearsal. In C.'s Notes you have that anecdote,
somewhat shortened and the names changed, without mentioning the
source."

"The reader, on the whole, may puzzle his head over many paragraphs
in the Notes, but he will hardly find explanations each time. What the
reader has to remember is that the Notes are material use