* * * * *

A restaurant.  An advanced conversation Andrey Andreyevitch, a good-natured bourgeois, suddenly declares:  “Do you know gentlemen, I was once an anarchist!” Every one is astonished.  A.A. tells the following tale:  a strict father; a technical school opened in the provincial town in a craze for technical education; they have no ideas and they did not know what to teach (since, if you are going to make shoemakers of all the inhabitants, who will buy the shoes?); he was expelled and his father turned him out of the house; he had to take a job as an assistant clerk on the squire’s estate; he became enraged with the rich, the well-fed, and the fat; the squire planted cherry trees, A.A. helped him, and suddenly a desire came over him to cut off the squire’s white fat fingers with the spade, as if it were by accident; and closing his eyes he struck a blow with the shovel as hard as he could, but it missed.  Then he went away; the forest, the quiet in the fields, rain; he longed for warmth, went to his aunt, she gave him tea and rolls—­and his anarchism was gone.  After the story there passed by the table Councillor of State L. Immediately A.A. gets up and explains how L., Councillor of State, owns houses, etc.

* * * * *

I was apprenticed to a tailor.  He cut the trousers; I did the sewing, but the stripe came down here right over the knee.  Then I was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker.  I was planing once when the plane flew out of my hands and hit the window; it broke the glass.  The squire was a Lett, his name Shtoppev[1]; and he had an expression on his face as if he were going to wink and say:  “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a drink?” In the evenings he drank, drank by himself—­and I felt hurt.

[Footnote 1:  Shtopov means “cork-screw.”]

* * * * *

A dealer in cider puts labels on his bottles with a crown printed on them.  It irritates and vexes X. who torments himself with the idea that a mere trader is usurping the crown.  X complains to the authorities, worries every one, seeks redress and so on; he dies from irritation and worry.

* * * * *

A governess is teased with the nickname Gesticulation.

* * * * *

Shaptcherigin, Zambisebulsky, Sveentchutka, Chemburaklya.

* * * * *

Senile pomposity, senile vindictiveness.  What a number of despicable old men I have known!

* * * * *

How delightful when on a bright frosty morning a new sleigh with a rug comes to the door.

* * * * *

X. arrived to take up duty at N., he shows himself a despot:  he is annoyed when some one else is a success; he becomes quite different in the presence of a third person; when a woman is present, his tone changes; when he pours out wine, he first puts a little in his own glass and then helps the company; when he walks with a lady he takes her arm; in general he tries to show refinement.  He does not laugh at other people’s jokes:  “You repeat yourself.”  “There is nothing new in that.”  Every one is sick of him; he sermonizes.  The old women nickname him “the top.”