* * * * *
N.N., a littérateur, critic, plausible, self-confident, very liberal minded, talks about poetry; condescendingly agrees with one—and I see that he is a man absolutely without talent (I haven't read him). Some one suggests going to Ai-Petri. I say that it is going to rain, but we set out. The road is muddy, it rains; the critic sits next to me, I feel his lack of talent. He is wooed and made a fuss of as if he were a bishop. And when it cleared up, I went back on foot. How easily people deceive themselves, how they love prophets and soothsayers; what a herd it is! Another person went with us, a Councillor of State, middle-aged, silent, because he thinks he is right and despises the critic, because he too is without talent. A girl afraid to smile because she is among clever people.
* * * * *
Alexey Ivanitch Prokhladitelny (refreshing) or Doushespasitelny (soul-saving). A girl: "I would marry him, but am afraid of the name—Madam Refreshing."
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A dream of a keeper in the zoological gardens. He dreams that there was presented to the Zoo first a marmot, then an emu, then a vulture, then a she-goat, then another emu; the presentations are made without end and the Zoo is crowded out—the keeper wakes up in horror wet with perspiration.
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"To harness slowly but drive rapidly is in the nature of this people," said Bismarck.
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When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.