A passion for the word uterine: my uterine brother, my uterine wife, my uterine brother-in-law, etc. * * * * * To Doctor N., an illegitimate child, who has never lived with his father and knew him very little, his bosom friend Z., says with agitation: "You see, the fact of the matter is that your father misses you very much, he is ill and wants to have a look at you." The father keeps "Switzerland," furnished apartments. He takes the fried fish out of the dish with his hands and only afterwards uses a fork. The vodka smells rank. N. went, looked about him, had dinner--his only feeling that that fat peasant, with the grizzled beard, should sell such filth. But once, when passing the house at midnight, he looked in at the window: his father was sitting with bent back reading a book. He recognized himself and his own manners. * * * * * As stupid as a gray gelding. * * * * * They teased the girl with castor oil, and therefore she did not marry. * * * * * N. all his life used to write abusive letters to famous singers, actors, and authors: "You think, you scamp,..."--without signing his name. * * * * * When the man who carried the torch at funerals came out in his three-cornered hat, his frock coat with laces and stripes, she fell in love with him. * * * * * A sparkling, joyous nature, a kind of living protest against grumblers; he is fat and healthy, eats a great deal, every one likes him but only because they are afraid of the grumblers; he is a nobody, a Ham, only eats and laughs loud, and that's all; when he dies, every one sees that he had done nothing, that they had mistaken him for some one else. * * * * * After the inspection of the building, the Commission, which was bribed, lunched heartily, and it was precisely a funeral feast over honesty. * * * * * He who tells lies is dirty. * * * * * At three o'clock in the morning they wake him: he has to go to his job at the railway station, and so every day for the last fourteen years. * * * * * A lady grumbles: "I write to my son that he should change his linen every Saturday. He replies: 'Why Saturday, not Monday?' I answer: 'Well, all right, let it be Monday.' And he: 'Why Monday, not Tuesday?' He is a nice honest man, but I get worried by him." * * * * * A clever man loves learning but is a fool at teaching. * * * * * The sermons of priests, archimandrites, and bishops are wonderfully like one another. * * * * *