* * * * *

The so-called pure childlike joy of life is animal joy.

* * * * *

I cannot bear the crying of children, but when my child cries, I don’t hear.

* * * * *

A schoolboy treats a lady to dinner in a restaurant.  He has only one rouble, twenty kopecks.  The bill comes to four roubles thirty kopecks.  He has no money and begins to cry.  The proprietor boxes his ears.  He was talking to the lady about Abyssinia.

* * * * *

A man, who, to judge from his appearance, loves nothing but sausages and sauerkraut.

* * * * *

We judge human activities by their goal; that activity is great of which the goal is great.

* * * * *

You drive on the Nevski, you look to the left on the Haymarket; the clouds are the color of smoke, the ball of the setting sun purple—­Dante’s hell!

* * * * *

His income is twenty-five to fifty thousand, and yet out of poverty he shoots himself.

* * * * *

Terrible poverty, desperate situation.  The mother a widow, her daughter a very ugly girl.  At last the mother takes courage and advises the daughter to go on the streets.  She herself when young went on the streets without her husband’s knowledge in order to get money for her dresses; she has some experience.  She instructs her daughter.  The latter goes out, walks all night; not a single man takes her; she is ugly.  A couple of days later, three young rascals on the boulevard take her.  She brought home a note which turned out to be a lottery ticket no longer valid.

* * * * *

Two wives:  one in Petersburg, the other in Kertch.  Constant rows, threats, telegrams.  They nearly reduce him to suicide.  At last he finds a way:  he settles them both in the same house.  They are perplexed, petrified; they grow silent and quiet down.

* * * * *

His character is so undeveloped that one can hardly believe that he has been to the University.

* * * * *

And I dreamt that, as it were, what I considered reality was a dream, and the dream was reality.

* * * * *

I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.

* * * * *

It usually takes as much time to feel happy as to wind up one’s watch.

* * * * *

A dirty tavern near the station.  And in every tavern like that you will find salted white sturgeon with horse radish.  What a lot of sturgeon must be salted in Russia!

* * * * *

Z. goes on Sundays to the Sukharevka (a market-place in Moscow) to look for books; he finds a book, written by his father, with the inscription:  “To darling Nadya from the author.”