And to make things better, they even misspelt my name: instead of Krikunov it was Kirkutlov. So much for your intellectual center! But that was not all.⁠ ⁠… By the time I left Petersburg, a month later, all the newspapers were vying with one another in discussing our incomparable, divine, highly talented actress, and my mistress was referred to, not by her surname, but by her Christian name and her father’s.⁠ ⁠…

“Some years later I was in Moscow. I was summoned there by a letter, in the mayor’s own handwriting, to undertake a work for which Moscow, in its newspapers, had been clamoring for over a hundred years. In the intervals of my work I delivered five public lectures, with a philanthropic object, in one of the museums there. One would have thought that was enough to make one known to the whole town for three days at least, wouldn’t one? But, alas! not a single Moscow gazette said a word about me. There was something about houses on fire, about an operetta, sleeping town councilors, drunken shop keepers⁠—about everything; but about my work, my plans, my lectures⁠—mum. And a nice set they are in Moscow! I got into a tram.⁠ ⁠… It was packed full; there were ladies and military men and students of both sexes, creatures of all sorts in couples.

“ ‘I am told the town council has sent for an engineer to plan such and such a work!’ I said to my neighbor, so loudly that all the tram could hear. ‘Do you know the name of the engineer?’