"Well, did you answer her?" we asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.
"I meant to, I meant to many times. But how was I to write? I don't know German ... and in Russian, who would have translated it? And so I did not write."
And always as he finished his story, Kuzma Vassilyevitch sighed, shook his head and said, "that's what it is to be young!" And if among his audience was some new person who was hearing the famous story for the first time, he would take his hand, lay it on his skull and make him feel the scar of the wound.... It really was a fearful wound and the scar reached from one ear to the other.
1867.
[THE DOG]
"But if one admits the possibility of the supernatural, the possibility of its participation in real life, then allow me to ask what becomes of common sense?" Anton Stepanitch pronounced and he folded his arms over his stomach.
Anton Stepanitch had the grade of a civil councillor, served in some incomprehensible department and, speaking emphatically and stiffly in a bass voice, enjoyed universal respect. He had not long before, in the words of those who envied him, "had the Stanislav stuck on to him."
"That's perfectly true," observed Skvorevitch.
"No one will dispute that," added Kinarevitch.