* * * * *

He had a liaison with a woman of forty-five after which he began to write ghost stories.

* * * * *

I dreamt that I was in India and that one of the local princes presented me with an elephant, two elephants even.  I was so worried about the elephant that I woke up.

* * * * *

An old man of eighty says to another old man of sixty:  “You ought to be ashamed, young man.”

* * * * *

When they sang in church, “Now is the beginning of our salvation,” he ate glavizna at home; on the day of St. John the Baptist he ate no food that was circular and flogged his children.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Glavizna in Russian is the name of a fish and also means beginning; the root of the verbs “to behead” and “to flog” are the same.]

* * * * *

A journalist wrote lies in the newspaper, but he thought he was writing the truth.

* * * * *

If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.

* * * * *

He himself is rich, but his mother is in the workhouse.

* * * * *

He married, furnished a house, bought a writing-table, got everything in order, but found he had nothing to write.

* * * * *

Faust:  “What you don’t know is just what you want; what you know is what you can’t use.”

* * * * *

Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority.

* * * * *

As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone.

* * * * *

A German:  “Lord have mercy on us, grieshniki."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Grieshniki means “sinners,” but sounds like grietchnieviki which means “buckwheat cakes.”]

* * * * *

“O my dear little pimple!” said the bride tenderly.  The bridegroom thought for a while, then felt hurt—­they parted.

* * * * *

They were mineral water bottles with preserved cherries in them.

* * * * *

An actress who spoilt all her parts by very bad acting—­and this continued all her life long until she died.  Nobody liked her; she ruined all the best parts; and yet she went on acting until she was seventy.

* * * * *

He alone is all right and can repent who feels himself to be wrong.

* * * * *

The archdeacon curses the “doubters,” and they stand in the choir and sing anathema to themselves (Skitalez).

* * * * *