Sublime

He was a nightmare of unmeaning idiocy.

Ничего не было в нем ровно: ни злодейского, ни доброго, и что-то страшное являлось в сем отсутствии всего.

Вместо вопросов: «Почем, батюшка, продали меру овса? как воспользовались вчерашней порошей?» — говорили: «А что пишут в газетах, не выпустили ли опять Наполеона из острова?»

Beggars, especially noble beggars, should never show themselves in the street; they should ask for alms through the newspapers.

His misshapen body, that gray mop of abundant hair, the yellow nails of his pudgy fingers, the bags under his lusterless eyes, were only intelligible if regarded as the waste products eliminated from his intrinsic self by the same forces of perfection which purified and chiseled his verse. He was his own cancellation.

О чем покойник спрашивал, зачем он умер или зачем жил, об этом один бог ведает.

Pesotsky had an immense house with columns and lions, off which the stucco was peeling, and with a footman in swallowtails at the entrance.