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. * * * * * What wonderful names: the little tears of Our Lady, warbler, crows-eyes.[1] [Footnote 1: The names of flowers.] * * * * * A government forest officer with shoulder straps, who has never seen a forest. * * * * * A gentleman owns a villa near Mentone; he bought it out of the proceeds of the sale of his estate in the Tula province. I saw him in Kharkhov to which he had come on business; he gambled away the villa at cards and became a railway clerk; after that he died. * * * * * At supper he noticed a pretty woman and choked; a little later he caught sight of another pretty woman and choked again, so that he did not eat his supper--there were a lot of pretty women. * * * * * A doctor, recently qualified, supervises the food in a restaurant. "The food is tinder the special supervision of a doctor." He copies out the chemical composition of the mineral water; the students believe him--and all is well. * * * * * He did not eat, he partook of food. * * * * * A man, married to an actress, during a performance of a play in which his wife was acting, sat in a box, with beaming face, and from time to time got up and bowed to the audience. * * * * * Dinner at Count O.D.'s. Fat lazy footmen; tasteless cutlets; a feeling that a lot of money is being spent, that the situation is hopeless, and that it is impossible to change the course of things. * * * * * A district doctor: "What other damned creature but a doctor would have to go out in such weather?"--he is proud of it, grumbles about it to every one, and is proud to think that his work is so troublesome; he does not drink and often sends articles to medical journals that do not publish them. * * * * *