more than
some celebrities. And yet here I am in my old age, I am getting ready
for my coffin, so to say, and I am as celebrated as that black dog
yonder running on the embankment."

"How can you tell? Perhaps you are celebrated."

"H'm! Well, we will test it at once. Tell me, have you ever heard the
name Krikunov?"

The _vis-a-vis_ raised his eyes to the ceiling, thought a minute, and
laughed.

"No, I haven't heard it,..." he said.

"That is my surname. You, a man of education, getting on in years, have
never heard of me--a convincing proof! It is evident that in my efforts
to gain fame I have not done the right thing at all: I did not know the
right way to set to work, and, trying to catch fame by the tail, got on
the wrong side of her."

"What is the right way to set to work?"

"Well, the devil only knows! Talent, you say? Genius? Originality? Not
a bit of it, sir!... People have lived and made a career side by side
with me who were worthless, trivial, and even contemptible compared with
me. They did not do one-tenth of the work I did, did not put themselves
out, were not distinguished for their talents, and did not make
an effort to be celebrated, but just look at them! Their names are
continually in the newspapers and on men's lips! If you are not tired of
listening I will illustrate it by an example. Some years ago I built
a bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that
scurvy little town was terrible. If it had not been for women and cards
I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story:
I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was
enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows why; to my thinking she
was--what shall I say?--an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots
of others. The hussy was empty-headed, ill-tempered, greedy, and what's
more, she was a fool.

"She ate and drank a vast amount, slept till five o clock in the
afternoon--and I fancy did nothing else. She was looked upon as a
cocotte, and that was indeed her profession; but when people wanted to
refer to her in a literary fashion, they called her an actress and
a singer. I used to be devoted to the theatre, and therefore this
fraudulent pretense of being an actress made me furiously indignant. My
young lady had not the slightest right to call herself an actress or
a singer. She was a creature entirely devoid of talent, devoid of
feeling--a pitiful creature one may say. As fa