In my opinion it is harmful to place important things in the hands of philanthropy, which in Russia is marked by a chance character. Nor should impor… - Anton Chekhov

"When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.

The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash.

...in twenty years I've found only one intelligent man in the whole town, and he's mad.