"Gooseberries" by Chekhov

Decided to hang with Chekhov for a bit more before moving on to the Goncourt brothers. (I'm at my mother's country house now -- for another week or so -- and it sometimes makes me feel like reaching for Chekhov, especially in summer.) This "clip" is from "Gooseberries," a short story you can easily down just before a lazy summertime nap.

"But the point just now is not he, but myself. I want to tell you about the change that took place in me during the brief hours I spent at his country place. In the evening, when we were drinking tea, the cook put on the table a plateful of gooseberries. They were not bought, but his own gooseberries, gathered for the first time since the bushes were planted. Nikolay Ivanovitch laughed and looked for a minute in silence at the gooseberries, with tears in his eyes; he could not speak for excitement. Then he put one gooseberry in his mouth, looked at me with the triumph of a child who has at last received his favourite toy, and said: "'How delicious!' "And he ate them greedily, continually repeating, 'Ah, how delicious! Do taste them!' "They were sour and unripe, but, as Pushkin says: "'Dearer to us the falsehood that exalts Than hosts of baser truths.'