Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

With N. and his wife there lives the wife’s brother, a lachrymose young man who at one time steals, at another tells lies, at another attempts suicide; N. and his wife do not know what to do, they are afraid to turn him out because he might kill himself; they would like to turn him out, but they do not know how to manage it. For forging a bill he gets into prison, and N. and his wife feel that they are to blame; they cry, grieve. She died from grief; he too died some time later and everything was left to the brother who squandered it and got into prison again.

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Suppose I had to marry a woman and live in her house, I would run away in two days, but a woman gets used so quickly to her husband’s house, as though she had been born there.

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Well, you are a Councillor; but whom do you counsel? God forbid that any one should listen to your counsels.

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The little town of Torjok. A sitting of the town council. Subject: the raising of the rates. Decision: to invite the Pope to settle down in Torjok — to choose it as his residence.

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S.’s logic: I am for religious toleration, but against religious freedom; one cannot allow what is not in the strict sense orthodox.

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St. Piony and Epinach. ii March, Pupli 13 m.

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Poetry and works of art contain not what is needed but what people desire; they do not go further than the crowd and they express only what the best in the crowd desire.

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A little man is very cautious; he sends even letters of congratulation by registered post in order to get a receipt.

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Russia is an enormous plain across which wander mischievous men.

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Platonida Ivanovna.

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If you are politically sound, that is enough for you to be considered a perfectly satisfactory citizen; the same thing with radicals, to be politically unsound is enough, everything else will be ignored.

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A man who when he fails opens his eyes wide.

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Ziuzikov.

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A Councillor of State, a respectable man; it suddenly comes out that he has secretly kept a brothel.

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N. has written a good play; no one praises him or is pleased; they all say: “We’ll see what you write next.”

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The more important people came in by the front door, the simple folk by the back door.

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He: “And in our town there lived a man whose name was Kishmish (raisin). He called himself Kishmish, but every one knew that he was Kishmish.”

She (after some thought): “How annoying … if only his name had been

Sultana, but Kishmish!…”

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Blagovospitanny.

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Most honored Iv-Iv-itch!

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How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything.

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They begin gossiping that N. is living with Z.; little by little an atmosphere is created in which a liaison of N. and Z. becomes inevitable.

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When the locust was a plague, I wrote against the locust and enchanted every one, I was rich and famous; but now, when the locust has long ago disappeared and is forgotten, I am merged in the crowd, forgotten, and not wanted.

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Merrily, joyfully: “I have the honor to introduce you to Iv. Iv.

Izgoyev, my wife’s lover.”

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Everywhere on the estate are notices: “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” “Keep off the flowers,” etc.

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In the great house is a fine library which is talked about but is never used; they give you watery coffee which you cannot drink; the garden is tasteless with no flowers in it — and they pretend that all this is something Tolstoian.

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He learnt Swedish in order to study Ibsen, spent a lot of time and trouble, and suddenly realized that Ibsen is not important; he could not conceive what use he could now make of the Swedish language.

[Footnote 1: Ibsen wrote in Norwegian of course. Responding to a request for his interpretation of this curious paragraph. Mr. Koteliansky writes:

“Chekhov had a very high opinion of Ibsen; the paragraph, I am sure, is by no means aimed at Ibsen. Most probably the paragraph, as well as many others in the Notes, is something which C. either personally or indirectly heard someone say. You will see that Kuprin [“Reminiscences of Chekhov,” by Gorky, Kuprin and Bunin, New York: Huebsch.] told C. the anecdote about the actor whose wife asked him to whistle a melody on the stage during a rehearsal. In C.’s Notes you have that anecdote, somewhat shortened and the names changed, without mentioning the source.”

“The reader, on the whole, may puzzle his head over many paragraphs in the Notes, but he will hardly find explanations each time. What the reader has to remember is that the Notes are material used by C. in his creative activity and as such it throws a great deal of light on C.’s mentality and process of working.”]

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N. makes a living by exterminating bugs; and for the purposes of his trade he reads the works of —  — . If in “The Cossacks,” bugs are not mentioned, it means that “The Cossacks” is a bad book.

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Man is what he believes.

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