From 'A Dreary Story' (Anton Chekhov)

There is in Russia an emeritus Professor Nikolay Stepanovitch, a chevalier and privy

councillor; he has so many Russian and foreign decorations that when he has occasion to
put them on the students nickname him "The Ikonstand." His acquaintances are of the
most aristocratic; for the last twenty-five or thirty years, at any rate, there has not been
one single distinguished man of learning in Russia with whom he has not been
intimately acquainted. There is no one for him to make friends with nowadays; but if we
turn to the past, the long list of his famous friends winds up with such names
as Pirogov, Kavelin, and the poet Nekrasov, all of whom bestowed upon him a warm and
sincere affection. He is a member of all the Russian and of three foreign universities.
And so on, and so on. All that and a great deal more that might be said makes up what is
called my "name."

That is my name as known to the public. In Russia it is known to every educated man,
and abroad it is mentioned in the lecture-room with the addition "honoured and
distinguished." It is one of those fortunate names to abuse which or to take which in
vain, in public or in print, is considered a sign of bad taste. And that is as it should be.
You see, my name is closely associated with the conception of a highly distinguished
man of great gifts and unquestionable usefulness. I have the industry and power of
endurance of a camel, and that is important, and I have talent, which is even more
important. Moreover, while I am on this subject, I am a well-educated, modest, and
honest fellow. I have never poked my nose into literature or politics; I have never sought
popularity in polemics with the ignorant; I have never made speeches either at public
dinners or at the funerals of my friends. . . . In fact, there is no slur on my learned name,
and there is no complaint one can make against it. It is fortunate.

The bearer of that name, that is I, see myself as a man of sixty-two, with a bald head,
with false teeth, and with an incurable tic. I am myself as dingy and unsightly as my
name is brilliant and splendid. My head and my hands tremble with weakness; my neck,
as Turgenev says of one of his heroines, is like the handle of a double bass; my chest is
hollow; my shoulders narrow; when I talk or lecture, my mouth turns down at one
corner; when I smile, my whole face is covered with aged-looking, deathly wrinkles.
There is nothing impressive about my pitiful figure; only, perhaps, when I have a tic
attack my face wears a peculiar expression, the sight of which must have roused in every
one the grim and impressive thought, "Evidently that man will soon die."

I still, as in the past, lecture fairly well; I can still, as in the past, hold the attention of my
listeners for a couple of hours. My fervour, the literary skill of my exposition, and my
humour, almost efface the defects of my voice, though it is harsh, dry, and monotonous
as a praying beggar's. I write poorly. That bit of my brain which presides over the faculty
of authorship refuses to work. My memory has grown weak; there is a lack of sequence
in my ideas, and when I put them on paper it always seems to me that I have lost the
instinct for their organic connection; my construction is monotonous; my language is
poor and timid. Often I write what I do not mean; I have forgotten the beginning when I
am writing the end. Often I forget ordinary words, and I always have to waste a great
deal of energy in avoiding superfluous phrases and unnecessary parentheses in my
letters, both unmistakable proofs of a decline in mental activity. And it is noteworthy
that the simpler the letter the more painful the effort to write it. At a scientific article I
feel far more intelligent and at ease than at a letter of congratulation or a minute of
proceedings. Another point: I find it easier to write German or English than to write
Russian.
As regards my present manner of life, I must give a foremost place to the insomnia from
which I have suffered of late. If I were asked what constituted the chief and fundamental
feature of my existence now, I should answer, Insomnia. As in the past, from habit I
undress and go to bed exactly at midnight. I fall asleep quickly, but before two o'clock I
wake up and feel as though I had not slept at all. Sometimes I get out of bed and light a
lamp. For an hour or two I walk up and down the room looking at the familiar
photographs and pictures. When I am weary of walking about, I sit down to my table. I
sit motionless, thinking of nothing, conscious of no inclination; if a book is lying before
me, I mechanically move it closer and read it without any interest -- in that way not long
ago I mechanically read through in one night a whole novel, with the strange title "The
Song the Lark was Singing"; or to occupy my attention I force myself to count to a
thousand; or I imagine the face of one of my colleagues and begin trying to remember in
what year and under what circumstances he entered the service......

The day begins for me with the entrance of my wife. She comes in to me in her petticoat, before she
has done her hair, but after she has washed, smelling of flower-scented eau-de-Cologne, looking as
though she had come in by chance. Every time she says exactly the same thing: "Excuse me, I have just
come in for a minute. . . . Have you had a bad night again?"

Then she puts out the lamp, sits down near the table, and begins talking. I am no prophet, but I know
what she will talk about. Every morning it is exactly the same thing. Usually, after anxious inquiries
concerning my health, she suddenly mentions our son who is an officer serving at Warsaw. After the
twentieth of each month we send him fifty roubles, and that serves as the chief topic of our
conversation.

"Of course it is difficult for us," my wife would sigh, "but until he is completely on his own feet it is
our duty to help him. The boy is among strangers, his pay is small. . . . However, if you like, next
month we won't send him fifty, but forty. What do you think?"

Daily experience might have taught my wife that constantly talking of our expenses does not reduce
them, but my wife refuses to learn by experience, and regularly every morning discusses our officer
son, and tells me that bread, thank God, is cheaper, while sugar is a halfpenny dearer -- with a tone and
an air as if she were communicating interesting news.