I dreamt that I was in India and that one of the local princes presented me with an elephant, two elephants even. I was so worried about the elephant that I woke up. * * * * * An old man of eighty says to another old man of sixty: "You ought to be ashamed, young man." * * * * * When they sang in church, "Now is the beginning of our salvation," he ate _glavizna_ at home; on the day of St. John the Baptist he ate no food that was circular and flogged his children.[1] [Footnote 1: _Glavizna_ in Russian is the name of a fish and also means beginning; the root of the verbs "to behead" and "to flog" are the same.] * * * * * A journalist wrote lies in the newspaper, but he thought he was writing the truth. * * * * * If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry. * * * * * He himself is rich, but his mother is in the workhouse. * * * * * He married, furnished a house, bought a writing-table, got everything in order, but found he had nothing to write. * * * * * Faust: "What you don't know is just what you want; what you know is what you can't use." * * * * * Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority. * * * * * As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone. * * * * * A German: "Lord have mercy on us, _grieshniki_."[1] [Footnote 1: _Grieshniki_ means "sinners," but sounds like _grietchnieviki_ which means "buckwheat cakes."] * * * * * "O my dear little pimple!" said the bride tenderly. The bridegroom thought for a while, then felt hurt--they parted. * * * * * They were mineral water bottles with preserved cherries in them. * * * * * An actress who spoilt all her parts by very bad acting--and this continued all her life long until she died. Nobody liked her; she ruined all the best parts; and yet she went on acting until she was seventy. * * * * * He alone is all right and can repent who feels himself to be wrong. * * * * * The archdeacon curses the "doubters," and they stand in the choir and sing anathema to themselves (Skitalez). * * * * * He imagined that his wife lay with her legs cut off and that he nursed her in order to save his soul.... * * * * * Madame Snuffley. * * * * * The black-beetles have left the house; the house will be burnt down. * * * * * "Dmitri, the Pretender, and Actors." "Turgenev and the Tigers." Articles like that can be and are written.