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 provinciaclass="underline" “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 has 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.