Note-Book of Anton Chekhov

by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

  * * * * *

  The dog hates the teacher; they tell it not to bark at him; it looks, does not bark, only whimpers with rage.

  * * * * *

  Faith is a spiritual faculty; animals have not got it; savages and uncivilized people have merely fear and doubt. Only highly developed natures can have faith.

  * * * * *

  Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die.

  * * * * *

  The public really loves in art that which is banal and long familiar, that to which they have grown accustomed.

  * * * * *

  A progressive, educated, young, but stingy school guardian inspects the school every day, makes long speeches there, but does not spend a penny on it: the school is falling to pieces, but he considers himself useful and necessary. The teacher hates him, but he does not notice it. The harm is great. Once the teacher, unable to stand it any longer, facing him with anger and disgust, bursts out swearing at him.

  * * * * *

  Teacher: "Poushkin's centenary should not be celebrated; he did nothing for the church."

  * * * * *

  Miss Guitarov (actress).

  * * * * *

  If you wish to become an optimist and understand life, stop believing what people say and write, observe and discover for yourself.

  * * * * *

  Husband and wife zealously followed X.'s idea and built up their life according to it as if it were a formula. Only just before death they asked themselves: "Perhaps that idea is wrong? Perhaps the saying 'mens sana in corpore sano' is untrue?"

  * * * * *

  I detest: a playful Jew, a radical Ukrainian, and a drunken German.

  * * * * *

  The University brings out all abilities, including stupidity.

  * * * * *

  Taking into consideration, dear sir, as a result of this view, dear sir….

  * * * * *

  The most intolerable people are provincial celebrities.

  * * * * *

  Owing to our flightiness, because the majority of us are unable and unaccustomed to think or to look deeply into life's phenomena, nowhere else do people so often say: "How banal!" nowhere else do people regard so superficially, and often contemptuously other people's merits or serious questions. On the other hand nowhere else does the authority of a name weigh so heavily as with us Russians, who have been abased by centuries of slavery and fear freedom….

  * * * * *

  A doctor advised a merchant to eat soup and chicken. The merchant thought the advice ironical. At first he ate a dinner of botvinia and pork, and then, as if recollecting the doctor's orders, ordered soup and chicken and swallowed them down too, thinking it a great joke.

  * * * * *

  Father Epaminond catches fish and puts them in his pocket; then, when he gets home, he takes out a fish at a time, as he wants it, and fries it.

  * * * * *

  The nobleman X. sold his estate to N. with all the furniture according to an inventory, but he took away everything else, even the oven dampers, and after that N. hated all noblemen.

  * * * * *

  The rich, intellectual X., of peasant origin, implored his son:—"Mike, don't get out of your class. Be a peasant until you die, do not become a nobleman, nor a merchant, nor a bourgeois. If, as you say, the Zemstvo officer now has the right to inflict corporal punishment on peasants, then let him also have the right to punish you." He was proud of his peasant origin, he was even haughty about it.

  * * * * *

  They celebrated the birthday of an honest man. Took the opportunity to show off and praise one another. Only towards the end of the dinner they suddenly discovered that the man had not been invited; they had forgotten.

  * * * * *

  A gentle quiet woman, getting into a temper, says: "If I were a man, I would just bash your filthy mug."

  * * * * *

  A Mussulman for the salvation of his soul digs a well. It would be a pleasant thing if each of us left a school, a well, or something like that, so that life should not pass away into eternity without leaving a trace behind it.

  * * * * *

  We are tired out by servility and hypocrisy.

  * * * * *

  N. once had his clothes torn by dogs, and now, when he pays a call anywhere, he asks: "Aren't there any dogs here?"

  * * * * *

  A young pimp, in order to keep up his powers, always eats garlic.

  * * * * *

  School guardian. Widowed priest plays the harmonium and sings: "Rest with the saints."

  * * * * *

  In July the red bird sings the whole morning.

  * * * * *

  "A large selection of cigs"[1]—so read X. every day when he went down the street, and wondered how one could deal only in cigs and who wanted them. It took him thirty years before he read it correctly: "A large selection of cigars."

  [Footnote 1: Cigs in Russian is a kind of fish.]

  * * * * *

  A bride to an engineer: a dynamite cartridge filled with one-hundred-rouble notes.

  * * * * *

  "I have not read Herbert Spencer. Tell me his subjects. What does he write about?" "I want to paint a panel for the Paris exhibition. Suggest a subject." (A wearisome lady.)

  * * * * *

  The idle, so-called governing, classes cannot remain long without war. When there is no war they are bored, idleness fatigues and irritates them, they do not know what they live for; they bite one another, try to say unpleasant things to one another, if possible with impunity, and the best of them make the greatest efforts not to bore the others and themselves. But when war comes, it possesses all, takes hold of the imagination, and the common misfortune unites all.

  * * * * *

  An unfaithful wife is a large cold cutlet which one does not want to touch, because some one else has had it in his hands.

  * * * * *

  An old maid writes a treatise: "The tramline of piety."

  * * * * *

  Ryzeborsky, Tovbin, Gremoukhin, Koptin.

  * * * * *

  She had not sufficient skin on her face; in order to open her eyes she had to shut her mouth and vice versa.

  * * * * *

  When she raises her skirt and shows her lace petticoat, it is obvious that she dresses like a woman who is accustomed to be seen by men.

  * * * * *

  X. philosophizes: "Take the word 'nose.' In Russia it seems something unmentionable means the deuce knows what, one may say the indecent part of the body, and in French it means wedding." And indeed X.'s nose was an indecent part of the body.

  * * * * *

  A girl, flirting, chatters: "All are afraid of me … men, and the wind … all leave me alone! I shall never marry." And at home poverty, her father a regular drunkard. And if people could see how she and her mother work, how she screens her father, they would feel the deepest respect for her and would wonder why she is so ashamed of poverty and work, and is not ashamed of that chatter.

  * * * * *

  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."

  * * * * *

  A man who can not do anything, does not know how to act, how to enter a room, how to ask for anything.

  * * * * *

  Utiujny

  * * * * *

  A man who always insists: "I haven't got syphilis. I'm an honest man.

  My wife is an honest woman."

  * * * * *

  X. all his life spoke and wrote about the vices of servants and about the way to manage and control them, and he died deserted by every one except his valet and his cook.

  * * * * *

  A little girl with rapture about her aunt: "She is very beautiful, as beautiful as our dog!"

  * * * * *

  Marie Ivanovna Kolstovkin.

  * * * * *

  In a love letter: "Stamp enclosed for a reply."

  * * * * *

  The best men leave the villages for the towns, and therefore the villages decline and will continue to decline.

  * * * * *

  Pavel was a cook for forty years; he loathed the things which he cooked and he never ate.

  * * * * *

  He ceased to love a woman; the sensation of not being in love; a peaceful state of mind; long peaceful thoughts.

  * * * * *

  Conservative people do so little harm because they are timid and have no confidence in themselves; harm is done not by conservative but by malicious people.

  * * * * *

  One of two things: either sit in the carriage or get out of it.

  * * * * *

  For a play: an old woman of radical views dresses like a girl, smokes, cannot exist without company, sympathetic.

  * * * * *

  In a Pullman car—these are the dregs of society.

  * * * * *

  On the lady's bosom was the portrait of a fat German.

  * * * * *

  A man who at all elections all his life long always voted against the

  Left.

  * * * * *

  They undressed the corpse, but had no time to take the gloves off; a corpse in gloves.

  * * * * *

  A farmer at dinner boasts: "Life in the country is cheap—one has one's own chickens, one's own pigs—life is cheap."

  * * * * *

  A customs official, from want of love for his work, searches the passengers, looking for documents of a suspicious political nature, and makes even the gendarmes indignant.

  * * * * *

  A real male (mouzhtchina) consists of man (mouzh) and title (tchin).

  * * * * *

  Education: "Masticate your food properly," their father told them. And they masticated properly, and walked two hours every day, and washed in cold water, and yet they turned out unhappy and without talent.

  * * * * *

  Commercial and industrial medicine.

  * * * * *

  N. forty years old married a girl seventeen. The first night, when they returned to his mining village, she went to bed and suddenly burst into tears, because she did not love him. He is a good soul, is overwhelmed with distress, and goes off to sleep in his little working room.

  * * * * *

  On the spot where the former manor house stood there is no trace left; only one lilac bush remains and that for some reason does not bloom.

  * * * * *

  Son: "To-day I believe is Thursday."

  Mother: (not having heard) "What?"

  Son: (angrily) "Thursday!" (quietly) "I ought to take a bath."

  Mother: "What?"

  Son: (angry and offended) "Bath!"

  * * * * *

  N. goes to X. every day, talks to him, and shows real sympathy in his grief; suddenly X. leaves his house, where he was so comfortable. N. asks X.'s mother why he went away. She answers: "Because you came to see him every day."

  * * * * *

  It was such a romantic wedding, and later—what fools! what babies!

  * * * * *

  Love. Either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something which once has been immense, or it is a particle of what will in the future develop into something immense; but in the present it is unsatisfying, it gives much less than one expects.

  * * * * *

  A very intellectual man all his life tells lies about hypnotism, spiritualism—and people believe him; yet he is quite a nice man.

  * * * * *

  In Act I, X., a respectable man, borrows a hundred roubles from N., and in the course of all four acts he does not pay it back.

  * * * * *

  A grandmother has six sons and three daughters, and best of all she loves the failure, who drinks and has been in prison.

  * * * * *

  N., the manager of a factory, rich, with a wife and children, happy, has written "An investigation into the mineral spring at X." He was much praised for it and was invited to join the staff of a newspaper; he gave up his post, went to Petersburg, divorced his wife, spent his money—and went to the dogs.

  * * * * *

  (Looking at a photograph album): "Whose ugly face is that?"

  "That's my uncle."

  * * * * *

  Alas, what is terrible is not the skeletons, but the fact that I am no longer terrified by them.

  * * * * *

  A boy of good family, capricious, full of mischief, obstinate, wore out his whole family. The father, an official who played the piano, got to hate him, took him into a corner of the garden, flogged him with considerable pleasure, and then felt disgusted with himself. The son has grown up and is an officer.

  * * * * *

  N. courted Z. for a long time. She was very religious, and, when he proposed to her, she put a dried flower, which he had once given to her, into her prayer-book.

  * * * * *

  Z: "As you are going to town, post my letter in the letter-box."

  N: (alarmed) "Where? I don't know where the letter-box is."

  Z: "Will you also call at the chemist's and get me some naphthaline?"

  N: (alarmed) "I'll forget the naphthaline, I'll forget
."

  * * * * *

  A storm at sea. Lawyers ought to regard it as a crime.

  * * * * *

  X. went to stay with his friend in the country. The place was magnificent, but the servants treated him badly, he was uncomfortable, although his friend considered him a big man. The bed was hard, he was not provided with a night shirt and he felt ashamed to ask for one.

  * * * * *

  At a rehearsal. The wife:

  "How does that melody in Pagliacci go? Whistle it."

  "One must not whistle on the stage; the stage is a temple."

  * * * * *

  He died from fear of cholera.

  * * * * *

  As like as a nail is to a requiem.

  * * * * *

  A conversation on another planet about the earth a thousand years hence. "Do you remember that white tree?"

  * * * * *

  Anakhthema!

  * * * * *

  Zigzagovsky, Oslizin, Svintchulka, Derbaliguin.

  * * * * *

  A woman with money, the money hidden everywhere, in her bosom and between her legs….

  * * * * *

  All that procedure.

  * * * * *

  Treat your dismissal as you would an atmospheric phenomenon.

  * * * * *

  A conversation at a conference of doctors. First doctor: "All diseases can be cured by salt." Second doctor, military: "Every disease can be cured by prescribing no salt." The first points to his wife, the second to his daughter.

  * * * * *

  The mother has ideals, the father too; they delivered lectures; they built schools, museums, etc. They grow rich. And their children are most ordinary; spend money, gamble on the Stock Exchange.

  * * * * *

  N. married a German when she was seventeen. He took her to live in Berlin. At forty she became a widow and by that time spoke Russian badly and German badly.

  * * * * *

  The husband and wife loved having visitors, because, when there were no visitors they quarreled.

  * * * * *

  It is an absurdity! It is an anachronism!

  * * * * *

  "Shut the window! You are perspiring! Put on an overcoat! Put on goloshes!"

  * * * * *

  If you wish to have little spare time, do nothing.

  * * * * *

  On a Sunday morning in summer is heard the rumble of a carriage—people driving to mass.

  * * * * *

  For the first time in her life a man kissed her hand; it was too much for her, it turned her head.