I go out for half an hour only — what is the use, good heavens, since there is no one about.

The Countess Merjeewsky was here. I am so cold with the Count that he understands; he leaves on Sunday, I believe. I have never addressed a word to him here.

I cannot explain these strange aversions. Often, from the very first moment, I begin to detest someone for nothing — simply because I cannot bear to look at his face.

— Trifon, when the man taller than a palm tree comes, show him out —

at which I smiled, but hid my face so as not to lose my dignity.

There are moments when I want neither to read, nor to write, nor to play, nor to eat — because I think of that man doing those things. So odious is he to me that I would not wish to breathe the same air as him! I wish he would take himself off to the moon, so that I need not inhabit the same planet as that creature.