ually turns into a housekeeper; she is
very timid, and can only say "No-o," "Yes-s," and her hands always
tremble. Somehow or other a Zemstvo official wished to marry her; he
is a widower and she marries him, with him too it was "Yes-s," "No-o";
she was very much afraid of her husband and did not love him; one day
he happened to give a loud cough, it gave her a fright, and she died.

* * * * *

Caressing her lover: "My vulture."

* * * * *

For a play: If only you would say something funny. But for twenty
years we have lived together and you have always talked of serious
things; I hate serious things.

* * * * *

A cook, with a cigarette in her mouth, lies: "I studied at a high
school ... I know what for the earth is round."

* * * * *

"Society for finding and raising anchors of steamers and barges," and
the Society's agent at all functions without fail makes a speech, a la
N., and without fail promises.

* * * * *

Super-mysticism.

* * * * *

When I become rich, I shall have a harem in which I shall keep fat
naked women, with their buttocks painted green.

* * * * *

A shy young man came on a visit for the night: suddenly a deaf old
woman came into his room, carrying a cupping-glass, and bled him; he
thought that this must be the usual thing and so did not protest; in
the morning it turned out that the old woman had made a mistake.

* * * * *

Surname: Verstax.

* * * * *

The more stupid the peasant, the better does the horse understand him.

THEMES, THOUGHTS, NOTES, AND FRAGMENTS.

... How stupid and for the most part how false, since if one man seeks
to devour another or tell him something unpleasant it has nothing to
do with Granovsky.[1]

[Footnote 1: A well-known Radical professor, a Westerner.]

* * * * *

I left Gregory Ivanovitch's feeling crushed and mortally offended.
I was irritated by smooth words and by those who speak them, and on
reaching home I meditated thus: some rail at the world, others at the
crowd, that is to say praise the past and blame the present; they cry
out that there are no ideals and so on, but all this has already been
said twenty or thirty ye