"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for itthe kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there`s this house, which must be built in order to have a nook of one`s own in which to be quiet. And now there`s this recruiting."