Once I was invited as an expert to the High Court. In the interval one of my fellow-experts called my attention to the rude behaviour of the public prosecutor to the prisoners, among whom were two women intellectuals. I don't think I exaggerated at all when I replied to my colleague that he was not behaving more rudely than authors of serious articles behave to one another. Indeed their behaviour is so rude that one speaks of them with bitterness. They behave to each other or to the writers whom they criticise either with too much deference, careless of their own dignity, or, on the other hand, they treat them much worse than I have treated Gnekker, my future son-in-law, in these notes and thoughts of mine. Accusations of irresponsibility, of impure intentions, of any kind of crime even, are the usual adornment of serious articles. And this, as our young medicos love to say in their little articles--quite _ultima ratio._ Such an attitude must necessarily be reflected in the character of the young generation of writers, and therefore I'm not at all surprised that in the new books which, have been added to our _belles lettres_ in the last ten or fifteen years, the heroes drink a great deal of vodka and the heroines are not sufficiently chaste.
I read French books and look out of the window, which is open--I see the pointed palings of my little garden, two or three skinny trees, and there, beyond the garden, the road, fields, then a wide strip of young pine-forest. I often delight in watching a little boy and girl, both white-haired and ragged, climb on the garden fence and laugh at my baldness. In their shining little eyes I read, "Come out, thou bald-head." These are almost the only people who don't care a bit about my reputation or my title.
I don't have visitors everyday now. I'll mention only the visits of Nicolas and Piotr Ignatievich. Nicolas comes to me usually on holidays, pretending to come on business, but really to see me. He is very hilarious, a thing which never happens to him in the winter.
"Well, what have you got to say?" I ask him, coming out into the passage.
"Your Excellency!" he says, pressing his hand to his heart and looking at me with a lover's rapture. "Your Excellency! So help me God! God strike me where I stand! _Gaudeamus igitur juvenestus._"