Short Stories

Nowadays humour and a fine style have disappeared, and abuse is accepted as wit.

"You are all scoundrels!" roared the young man of the comic paper. "I will caricature you all to-morrow in the Firebrand."

He had the persistence of an ant. Destroy an ants' nest, and they will begin at once re-erecting it; destroy it again, and they will begin again without wearying. He was a constructive house-building animal.

"Porfiry, I appeal to you.... Tell me, when I came ... yes ... yes, to your wedding, I had an object. I was aiming at moral elevation.... I wanted it to be felt.... I appeal to all: am I greatly lowered in your eyes or not?"

A deathlike silence. That was just it, a deathlike silence, and to such a downright question.

"Yes, you came to show off your humanity! You've hindered the enjoyment of every one. You've been drinking champagne without thinking that it is beyond the means of a clerk at ten roubles a month. And I suspect that you are one of those high officials who are a little too fond of the young wives of their clerks! What is more, I am convinced that you support State monopolies.... Yes, yes, yes!"

He felt that every word uttered by the comic young man was a fresh dagger at his heart.

This last disaster crushed him completely.

"My friends, this is too much," he cried in despair.

I am lowering myself by speaking like this...."

Ivan Ilyitch had no notion of the price paid for the two bottles of Jackson he had drunk that evening.