“You?  Do you mean to say you are married?”

“To-day, my dear boy.  We came away straight after the wedding.”

Congratulations and the usual questions follow.  “Well, you are a fellow!” laughs Pyotr Petrovitch.  “That’s why you are rigged out such a dandy.”

“Yes, indeed. . . .  To complete the illusion, I’ve even sprinkled myself with scent.  I am over my ears in vanity!  No care, no thought, nothing but a sensation of something or other . . . deuce knows what to call it . . . beatitude or something?  I’ve never felt so grand in my life!”

Ivan Alexyevitch shuts his eyes and waggles his head.

“I’m revoltingly happy,” he says.  “Just think; in a minute I shall go to my compartment.  There on the seat near the window is sitting a being who is, so to say, devoted to you with her whole being.  A little blonde with a little nose . . . little fingers. . . .  My little darling!  My angel!  My little poppet!  Phylloxera of my soul!  And her little foot!  Good God!  A little foot not like our beetle-crushers, but something miniature, fairylike, allegorical.  I could pick it up and eat it, that little foot!  Oh, but you don’t understand!  You’re a materialist, of course, you begin analyzing at once, and one thing and another.  You are cold-hearted bachelors, that’s what you are!  When you get married you’ll think of me.  ‘Where’s Ivan Alexyevitch now?’ you’ll say.  Yes; so in a minute I’m going to my compartment.  There she is waiting for me with impatience . . . in joyful anticipation of my appearance.  She’ll have a smile to greet me.  I sit down beside her and take her chin with my two fingers.”

Ivan Alexyevitch waggles his head and goes off into a chuckle of delight.

“Then I lay my noddle on her shoulder and put my arm round her waist.  Around all is silence, you know . . . poetic twilight.  I could embrace the whole world at such a moment.  Pyotr Petrovitch, allow me to embrace you!”

“Delighted, I’m sure.”  The two friends embrace while the passengers laugh in chorus.  And the happy bridegroom continues: 

“And to complete the idiocy, or, as the novelists say, to complete the illusion, one goes to the refreshment-room and tosses off two or three glasses.  And then something happens in your head and your heart, finer than you can read of in a fairy tale.  I am a man of no importance, but I feel as though I were limitless:  I embrace the whole world!”

The passengers, looking at the tipsy and blissful bridegroom, are infected by his cheerfulness and no longer feel sleepy.  Instead of one listener, Ivan Alexyevitch has now an audience of five.  He wriggles and splutters, gesticulates, and prattles on without ceasing.  He laughs and they all laugh.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, don’t think so much!  Damn all this analysis!  If you want a drink, drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it’s bad for you or not. . . .  Damn all this philosophy and psychology!”