A Chekhov Anecdote

Bob sent me this anecdote from Ivan Bunin's "Memoirs and Portraits."

"Do you know what happened to me once?" And, peering into my face through his pince-nez, he [Chekhov] burst out laughing. "You see, I was going up the main stairs of the Moscow Assembly of the Nobility, and there, in front of the mirror, his back to me, stood Uzhin-Sumbatov, holding Potapenko by a coat button and saying insistently: 'Do understand--you are now the first, the very first writer in Russia.' Suddenly he caught sight of me in the mirror, blushed and said quickly, pointing at me over his shoulder: 'And so is he.'"

Update:Fixed those pesky line breaks.