for your sake!"

And here I am at my wedding. At the moment I write these last words,
my best man is at my side, urging me to make haste. These people
have no idea of my character! I have a violent temper, I cannot
always answer for myself! Hang it all! God knows what will come of
it! To lead a violent, desperate man to the altar is as unwise as
to thrust one's hand into the cage of a ferocious tiger. We shall
see, we shall see!

* * * * *

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
up. She gazed into the darkness, sighed, and turned over on the
other side. Five minutes afterwards she turned over again and shut
her eyes more firmly but she could not get to sleep again. After
sighing and tossing from side to side for a time, she got up, crept
over her husband, and putting on her slippers, went to the window.

It was dark outside. She could see nothing but the outlines of the
trees and the roof of the stables. There was a faint pallor in the
east, but this pallor was beginning to be clouded over. There was
perfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber an