“M-Masha . . . I want to go home. Call a cab.”
“All right then! But walk down that lane in a straight line, and I’ll walk a little ways back. I can’t afford to be seen with you in this state. In a straight line! ”
The lady points the man who is not even her husband toward the exit and gives him a slight push. He moves forward quickly, tottering, bumping into people and chairs. The lady walks some distance behind him, watching him carefully. She is mortified and on edge.
“Walking sticks, fine walking sticks!” a man with a bundle of sticks and canes called out to the gentleman. “First-rate walking sticks, hickory, bamboo!”
The gentleman looked foolishly at the peddler and turned back, stumbling in the opposite direction, an expression of horror on his face.
“Where in heaven’s name do you think you’re going?” the lady said, grabbing him by the sleeve. “Tell me, where?”
“Where is Masha? M-Masha’s gone . . .”
“And who am I, if not Masha?”
The lady took the gentleman under the arm and led him toward the exit. She was embarrassed.
“May God strike me down if I will ever be seen in public with you again,” she mumbled, her face flushed with shame. “This is the last time I will put up with a spectacle of this kind. May God punish me . . . tomorrow I’m going straight back to Pavel Ivanich!” The lady raised her eyes timidly to the people all around, expecting to be met with mocking laughter. But all she saw were drunken faces, nodding heads, and stumbling revelers.
She was relieved.
THE MARRIAGE SEASON
(From the Notebook of a Marriage Broker)
Ivan Savvich Accumulatoff, provincial secretary, forty-two. Unsightly, pockmarked, voice gratingly nasal, yet all in all a fine figure of a man. Frequents all the best drawing rooms and the general’s wife is his aunt. Lives from usury and is a crook, but is otherwise a decent enough fellow. Is seeking a young lady between eighteen and twenty, from a good home, and who knows French. Good looks are a must, as is a dowry of fifteen to twenty thousand rubles.
Prepossessoff, retired officer. A drinker prone to rheumatism. Is seeking a wife who will nurse him. Not averse to a widow (though not over the age of twenty-five). Must have capital.
Proudhonoff, photographic retoucher, seeks from photograph a bride who is not mortgaged, and will bring in at least two thousand a year. He drinks (not persistently, but with gusto), has brown hair, black eyes.
Madame Gnatskaya, widow. Has two houses and eleven hundred in cash. Seeks army general (even retired, if need be). Has a cataract in her left eye, though it is barely noticeable, and speaks with a whistle. Claims that although she is a widow she is in fact a virgin, as on her wedding night her late-lamented husband was overcome by palsy.
Diphtherit Alekseyich Mademoiselloff, thespian, thirty-five, of undetermined means. Claims his father owns a distillery (most certainly a tall tale). Invariably sports a coat and tails and a white cravat, as those are the only items of clothing he owns. Left the stage due to hoarseness of voice. Seeks merchant’s daughter or widow of any shape or size, as long as she has money.
Plumpovsky, former staff captain, sentenced to exile in Siberia (Tomsk Province) for embezzlement and forgery. Wishes to make happy a poor orphan girl who would be prepared to follow him to Siberia. She must, however, be of noble lineage.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I.
An Open Letter to Mr. Okrets
Dear Sir,
I have obliged your request to recommend your magazine Luch to friends and acquaintances; but as everyone I know lives quite far away, I have had to deliver your esteemed magazine to them with cabs or to recommend it to them by way of the municipal post. Consequently, I have spent eight rubles and eighty-five kopecks on said cabs and stamps. In the conviction that you will be enough of a gentleman to send me this sum at your earliest convenience,
I remain faithfully, etc.
R. Smirnov
The Town of Zhizdra, at Madame Khilkina’s residence
II.
An Open Letter to a Number of People
I am markedly popular. I may never have raised a sword on a field of battle, or blown up armored ships, or invented telephones, but nevertheless I seem for some reason to be blessed with some fame in Petersburg, Moscow, and even Hamburg. In little or no time I have received a flurry of invitations and letters from the following esteemed personages and institutions: the banking offices of Klim, the Hamburg Municipal Lottery, the St. Petersburg school manual outlet, five advertisements from the magazine Nov and five from Zhivopisnoe Obozreniye, a letter from Monsieur Leukhin’s editorial office, and from Ilin Maps and Charts, to name a few. I am puzzled as to how they came to know me and my address. I would like herewith to express my gratitude to the aforementioned individuals and institutions for their flattering attention, but would ask them to desist from this uninterrupted constant correspondence, as it causes me a great inconvenience: postmen have tugged the cord of my doorbell to shreds, and the onslaught of letters has caused my neighbors, not to mention the keepers of the peace, puzzlement, doubts, and raised eyebrows in regard to my views.
III.
Letter to the Editor of Oskolki Magazine
Dear Sir,
One invariably hears complaints of how we have not kept up with the times, how Russia is lagging behind Western Europe. And indeed we are lagging behind by as much as twelve days! And yet it would be so easy for our Russian calendar to catch up: all we would have to do would be to count the first day of the year not as the first of January, but as the thirteenth. Then we would stand shoulder to shoulder with all of Europe! I cannot perceive the slightest hitch in this. Except perhaps that ladies and maidens would suddenly find themselves twelve days older. But civil servants would be delighted: their salaries would be paid out much sooner. Of course, for those among us who are superstitious, it would be terrible to begin the year on the thirteenth. But must civilization bow and curtsy to superstitions? The mere thought of it! If we catch up with the rest of the world, we might even get ourselves a better rate of exchange.
Accept, my dear sir, etc.
Subscriber No. 11378
IV.
To the Editor of Raduga
Being a staunch aficionado of the performing arts, as is my daughter Zinaida, I herewith have the honor of requesting of the highly esteemed Monsieur Mansfeld that he pen for our private domestic use four comedies, three dramas, and two tragedies à la Hamlet, on the completion of which I will send you a three-ruble bill. (You may send me the change in postage stamps.) I herewith also consider it my duty to add that my neighbors who have ordered Monsieur Mansfeld’s works either wholesale or retail are most satisfied, and are grateful at how cheap they are. We all also have the highest praise for Monsieur Mettsel for his kindness: on noting that the magazine Raduga could not accommodate all of Monsieur Mansfeld’s works, he launched the magazine Epokha exclusively for them. What kindness!
Accept, dear sir, my humblest, and so on.
Colonel Kochkarev
Penza, on the second of January
VISITING CARDS
Before me on the table lie the visiting cards with which my dear acquaintances have graced me for the New Year. They send them so that the postman can wear out his new shoes and doff his cap at my maid. As an ancient philosopher once said: “Tell me who sends you his visiting card, and I will tell you with whom you are acquainted.” Should anyone be interested in my acquaintances, these are their cards:
An earl’s coronet. Beneath it letters that smack of both Gothic and the provincial: “Citoyen d’honneur, Klim Ivanovich Deludedsky.”
A visiting card with a golden border and a folded corner: “Jean Pifficoff.” This Jean is a hulking fellow with a hoarse bass voice who exudes an aroma of vinegar, and roams the earth in search of someone who h
as an ounce of pity for a man fate has not been kind to, who has a ruble to lend him, and who will offer him a glass of vodka.
Court Councilor and Chevalier, Dioscur Hemorrhoidovich Lodkin.
Savaty Candelabrovich Buzzer-Wanderoffsky, Member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Agent of the Salamandra Fire Insurance Company, Roving Reporter for Volna, and Sales Representative for Singer & Co. sewing machines, etc.
Monsieur Franz Emilievich Pudique, Instructor in Social Dances and French Conversation.
Priestly Monk, Father Jeremiah.
A prince’s coronet. Valentin Sisoyevich Sheet-Ofpaperoff, high school student.
A nondescript coronet. State Councilor Erast Crinolinovich Headlongoff.
Prince Agop Minayevich Obshiavishvili, Crimean and Georgian Wines and Spirits.
Also cards from, among others: Barrister’s assistant Mitrofan Alexeyevich Bright-Redovich, Dysenteria Alexandrovna Imensova, Nikita Spevsipovich Runoff . . . Deacon Pyotr Ourdailybreadsky . . . Ivan Ivanich Diabolikoff, Editorial Assistant, Rebus Magazine . . . Antisemite Antisemitovich Okrets, Editor in Chief, Luch Magazine.
THE FOOLISH FRENCHMAN
Henri Pourquoi, a clown in the Gintz Brothers Circus, went into Moscow’s renowned Testov Tavern to eat lunch.
“I’d like some consommé, please,” he told the waiter.
“With poached eggs, or without?”
“Without—poached eggs might be a little too heavy for me. But I wouldn’t mind two or three slices of toast.”
While Pourquoi waited for his consommé, he looked around. The first thing he noticed was a portly gentleman at the next table, who was about to eat some blinis.
“My goodness,” the clown muttered to himself as he watched his neighbor pour melted butter over the blinis. “The portions they serve in these Russian restaurants! Five blinis! Can one man eat so many?”
His neighbor was now heaping caviar onto the blinis. He cut them into halves, and had eaten them all within a minute.
“Hey there!” the man called out to the waiter. “I’ll have another portion! Do you call these servings? You know what? Bring me ten, fifteen blinis right away! And a nice slice of sturgeon while you’re at it, and some salmon!”
“How very odd,” Pourquoi thought, peering at his neighbor. “He’s just eaten five whole blinis and now he’s ordering more! Not that this is a unique phenomenon. After all, Oncle François back in Brittany had no trouble downing two bowls of soup and five lamb chops at a single sitting. I’ve heard say that there are illnesses where people simply can’t stop eating.”
The waiter placed a platter piled with blinis and two plates before the clown’s neighbor, one with sturgeon filets, the other with salmon. The portly gentleman drank a glass of vodka, ate a slice of salmon, and then turned his attention to the blinis. To the clown’s amazement, he set about eating them like a starving man, barely pausing to chew.
“He’s obviously sick,” Pourquoi mused. “But does the poor misguided fool really think he can finish off that enormous pile of pancakes? Three more bites and his stomach will be full, but he’ll still have to pay for the whole lot!”
“More caviar!” his neighbor called out, dabbing his oily lips with his napkin. “And don’t forget the green onions!”
“But . . . half the pile is gone already!” the clown muttered to himself in horror. “My God! Has he already finished the whole plate of salmon? That isn’t natural! Can a human stomach expand to such an extent? Impossible! It cannot expand beyond the belly! Back in France, exhibiting this man at a freak show you could rake in a fortune! Good heavens! The whole pile of blinis is gone!”
“And I’ll have a bottle of Château Neuille,” his neighbor said to the waiter, who had just brought him onions and more caviar. “But see that it’s not overchilled! Hmm, what else do I want? Oh yes, another serving of blinis! But don’t take all day!”
“Yes sir! And what will you be having as a second course?”
“Something lighter, I think. Get me a portion of sturgeon stew à la russe, will you? And also . . . um . . . give me a few minutes to think—off you go!”
“I must be dreaming!” the clown gasped, slumping against the back of his chair. “This man is courting death. No one can eat such a pile of food and expect to get away with it! Goodness! He’s trying to commit suicide! It’s written all over his sad face! But hasn’t the waiter suspected anything? He must have!”
Pourquoi motioned to the waiter who had been serving his neighbor, and asked him in a whisper: “Why are you giving him so much food?”
“Well, the gentleman ordered it. What am I supposed to do,” the waiter asked in surprise, “not serve him?”
“But he might keep ordering food all day and all night! If you don’t have the pluck to stop him, then get the manager to, or call the police!”
The waiter grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away.
“Barbarians!” the Frenchman uttered indignantly. “They are delighted that a madman, a suicidal maniac, is sitting here spending his rubles on their food! They don’t care that this man is eating himself to death as long as the money keeps rolling in!”
“I don’t think much of the service here!” the portly gentleman growled, turning to the Frenchman. “I can’t tell you how all this waiting irritates me! They make you wait a good half hour from one plate to the next! No wonder your appetite goes to the dogs! Not to mention that they make you late—it’s three o’clock already, and I’m expected at an anniversary dinner at five!”
“Pardon, monsieur,” Pourquoi said, his face ashen, “but you are already dining!”
“No-o-o! You call this dining? This is lunch—a few little blinis.”
The waiter placed the stew in front of the portly gentleman, who filled his plate, sprinkled cayenne pepper over it, and began slurping down one spoonful after another.
“The poor man,” the French clown muttered, appalled. “He is either sick, or simply not aware of the danger he is in—or he is doing this on purpose . . . with the intention of committing suicide! Lord in heaven! Had I known what my eyes would see in this place, nothing on earth would have induced me to come here! My nerves aren’t strong enough for such a spectacle!”
The Frenchman looked pityingly at his neighbor, waiting from minute to minute for the convulsions to begin, the same convulsions that had invariably gripped Oncle François after his dangerous meals.
“It’s plain to see that the man is intelligent, young, and full of vitality,” Pourquoi thought, eyeing his neighbor. “He might serve his country well, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he has a young wife too, and children. And judging by his clothes he must be well-to-do, with a good position. But what could push a man like that to such drastic measures? Couldn’t he have chosen another way of doing himself in? It’s amazing how little life is valued! How low and contemptible I am, sitting here without offering him a helping hand! Perhaps he can still be saved!”
Pourquoi resolutely got up from his chair and walked over to his neighbor.
“Excuse me, monsieur,” he said in a hushed, ingratiating voice. “Though I have not had the honor of being introduced to you, I would like to assure you that you can think of me as a friend. Can I be of help to you in any way? Don’t forget that you are still young . . . that you have a wife, children.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the man said, glaring at the Frenchman.
“Let us not mince words at a time like this, monsieur! After all, I have eyes in my head! You are eating so much, that I . . . can but conjecture—”
“Me? Eating so much?” the man spluttered. “Me? Come, come! I haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast!”
“But you are eating incredible amounts of food!”
“What are you worried about? It’s not as if you have to foot the bill! A
nd what makes you think that I am eating all that much? Look around you!—I’m not eating more than anyone else!”
Pourquoi looked around, and tottered. Waiters bustling past each other were carrying plates piled high with food. The tables were filled with people devouring mountains of blinis, salmon, and caviar with as much gusto as the portly gentleman.
“O strange and wild country!” the French clown thought as he left the restaurant. “Not only is your climate miraculous, but so are the bellies of your people! O wondrous Russia!”
PERSONS ENTITLED TO TRAVEL FREE OF CHARGE ON THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN RAILWAYS
IN FIRST-CLASS CARRIAGES
All railroad employees, without exception, their assistants, their lady assistants, and their assistants’ assistants. Note: Lower-ranking railway workers with grimy faces and dirty overalls (such as oilmen and depot workers) do not have the right to travel free of charge.
The wives of railway employees, their parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sisters-in-law, sisters, brothers, mothers-in-law, aunts, parents of godchildren, godparents, godchildren, cousins, nephews, in fact relatives of every rank and classification, nannies, maids, as well as mistresses and gentlemen friends.
Station buffet attendants, their wives and acquaintances.
Landowners of the area traveling to a station in order to play a game of whist with the stationmaster, their wives, and relatives.
Guests of railroad employees. Note: In cases where drawn-out goodbyes are called for, the stationmaster may delay the train for up to twenty minutes.
All acquaintances of the conductor, without exception.
All creditors of the Imperial Russian Railways.
IN SECOND-CLASS CARRIAGES
Valets of railroad employees, cooks, scullery maids, coachmen, housemaids, and chimney sweeps.
The servants of the relatives and acquaintances of railroad employees.