And so, I am married. Everybody congratulates me and Varenka keeps
clinging to me and saying:

"Now you are mine, mine; do you understand that? Tell me that you
love me!" And her nose swells as she says it.

I learn from my best man that the wounded officer has very cleverly
escaped the snares of Hymen. He showed the variegated young lady a
medical certificate that owing to the wound in his temple he was
at times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a valid
marriage. An inspiration! I might have got a certificate too. An
uncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremely
absent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head in
mistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on the
piano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like.
And my ungovernable temper is a very suspicious symptom.

But why do these great ideas always come too late? Why?


IN THE DARK

A FLY of medium size made its way into the nose of the assistant
procurator, Gagin. It may have been impelled by curiosity, or have
got there through frivolity or accident in the dark; anyway, the
nose resented the presence of a foreign body and gave the signal
for a sneeze. Gagin sneezed, sneezed impressively and so shrilly
and loudly that the bed shook and the springs creaked. Gagin's wife,
Marya Mihalovna, a full, plump, fair woman, started, too, and woke