A girl writes:  “We shall live intolerably near you.”

* * * * *

N. has been for long in love with Z. who married X.; two years after the marriage Z. comes to N., cries, wishes to tell him something; N. expects to hear her complain against her husband; but it turns out that Z. has come to tell of her love for K.

* * * * *

N. a well known lawyer in Moscow; Z., who like N. was born in Taganrog, comes to Moscow and goes to see the celebrity; he is received warmly, but he remembers the school to which they both went, remembers how N. looked in his uniform, becomes agitated by envy, sees that N.’s flat is in bad taste, that N. himself talks a great deal; and he leaves disenchanted by envy and by the meanness which before he did not even suspect was in him.

* * * * *

The title of a play:  The Bat.

* * * * *

Everything which the old cannot enjoy is forbidden or considered wrong.

* * * * *

When he was getting on in years, he married a very young girl, and so she faded and withered away with him.

* * * * *

All his life he wrote about capitalism and millions, and he had never had any money.

* * * * *

A young lady fell in love with a handsome constable.

* * * * *

N. was a very good, fashionable tailor; but he was spoiled and ruined by trifles; at one time he made an overcoat without pockets, at another a collar which was much too high.

* * * * *

A farce:  Agent of freight transport company and of fire insurance company.

* * * * *

Any one can write a play which might be produced.

* * * * *

A country house.  Winter.  N., ill, sits in his room.  In the evening there suddenly arrives from the railway station a stranger Z., a young girl, who introduces herself and says that she has come to look after the invalid.  He is perplexed, frightened, he refuses; then Z. says that at any rate she will stay the night.  A day passes, two, and she goes on living there.  She has an unbearable temper, she poisons one’s existence.

* * * * *

A private room in a restaurant.  A rich man Z., tying his napkin round his neck, touching the sturgeon with his fork:  “At least I’ll have a snack before I die”—­and he has been saying this for a long time, daily.

* * * * *

By his remarks on Strindberg and literature generally L.L.  Tolstoi reminds one very much of Madam Loukhmav.[1]

[Footnote 1:  L.L.  Tolstoi was Leo Nicolaievitch’a son, Madame Loukhmav a tenth rate woman-writer.]