I drank so much in Peter<sburg> that Russia should be proud of me! - Anton Chekhov

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

A woman can only become a man's friend after having first been his acquaintance and then his beloved — then she becomes his friend.

You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" . . . When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: "Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: "When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as though she wanted to seize his answer in them. "To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's thought. "To-morrow, perhaps."