November 13.
Well, now, let's see: the letter looks pretty clear. However, there's still something doggy in the writing. Let's read it:
Dear Fidele,
I still cannot get used to your common-sounding name. As if they couldn't have given you a better one? Fidele, Rosy- such banal tone! However, that's all beside the point. I'm very glad we've decided to write to each other.
The letter is written very correctly. Punctuation and even tricky spellings all in order. Not even our section chief can write like that, though he keeps saying he studied at some university. Let's see what comes next:
It seems to me that sharing thoughts, feelings, and impressions with others is one of the foremost blessings in the world.
Hm! the thought is drawn from some work translated from the German. Can't recall the title.
I say it from experience, though I've never run farther in the world than the gates of our house. Whose life flows by in pleasure if not mine? My young mistress, whom Papa calls Sophie, loves me to distraction.
Aie, aie!… never mind, never mind. Silence.
Papa also pets me very often. I drink tea and coffee with cream. Ah, ma chere, I must tell you that I see no pleasure at all in those big, bare bones our Polkan slobbers over in the kitchen. Only bones from wild game are good, and only before anyone has sucked out the marrow. Mixtures of several gravies are very good, only not with capers or herbs; but I know nothing worse than the habit of giving dogs little balls of bread. Some gentleman sitting at the table, after holding all sorts of trash in his hands, begins to roll bread in those same hands, then calls you over and puts the ball in your teeth. It's somehow impolite to refuse, so you eat it; with disgust, but you eat it…
Devil knows what this is! Such nonsense! As if there were no better subjects to write about. Let's look at the next page. For something more sensible.
I'm quite ready and willing to inform you of all that goes on in our house. I've already told you a little something about the main gentleman, whom Sophie calls Papa. He's a very strange man.
Ah! at last! Yes, I knew it: they have political views on all subjects. Let's see about Papa:
… a very strange man. He's silent most of the time. Speaks very rarely; but a week ago, he talked to himself constantly: "Will I get it or won't I?" He would take a piece of paper in one hand, close the other empty one, and say: "Will I get it or won't I?" Once he addressed the question to me: "What do you think, Medji? Will I get it or won't I?" I could understand none of it, so I sniffed his boot and went away. Then, ma chere, a week later Papa came home very happy. All morning gentlemen in uniforms kept coming to him, congratulating him for something. At the table he was merrier than I'd ever seen him before, told jokes, and after dinner he held me up to his neck and said: "Look, Medji, what's this?" I saw some little ribbon. I sniffed it but found decidedly no aroma; finally I licked it on the sly: it was a bit salty.
Hm! This little dog seems to me to be much too… she ought to be whipped! Ah! so he's ambitious. That must be taken into consideration.
Good-bye, ma there, I must run, and so on… and so forth… I'll finish my letter tomorrow. Well, hello! here I am again… Today my mistress Sophie…
Ah! so we shall see about Sophie. Eh, confound it!… Never mind, never mind… let's go on.
… my mistress Sophie was in a great bustle. She was going to a ball, and I was glad that in her absence I'd be able to write to you. My Sophie is always greatly delighted to be going to a ball, though she's almost always angry as she's being dressed. I simply don't understand, ma chere, the pleasure in going to a ball. Sophie comes home from the ball at six o'clock in the morning, and I can almost always tell by her pale and skinny look that the poor thing was given nothing to eat there. I confess, I could never live like that. If I wasn't given hazel grouse with gravy or roast chicken wings, I… I don't know what would become of me. Gruel with gravy is also good. But carrots, turnips, and artichokes will never be good…
Extremely uneven style. Shows at once that it wasn't written by a man. Begins properly, but ends with some dogginess. Let's have a look at another letter. A bit long. Hm! and no date.
Ah, my dear, how one senses the approach of spring! My heart throbs as if it keeps waiting for something. There is an eternal humming in my ears, so that I often stand for several minutes with uplifted paw, listening at the door. I'll confide to you that I have many wooers. I often sit in the window and look at them. Ah, if you only knew how ugly some of them are. The coarsest of all mutts, terribly stupid, stupidity written all over his face, goes down the street most imposingly, imagining he's the noblest person, thinking everyone is looking only at him. Not a bit of it. I didn't even pay attention, just as if I hadn't seen him. And what a frightful Great Dane stops outside my window! If he stood on his hind legs- something the boor is surely incapable of doing-he'd be a whole head taller than my Sophie's Papa, who is also quite tall and fat. This blockhead must be terribly impudent. I growled at him a little, but he couldn't have cared less. He didn't flinch! stuck his tongue out, hung his enormous ears, and stared in the window-what a clod! But don't think, ma chere, that my heart is indifferent to all suitors-oh, no… If you saw a certain gallant who climbs over the fence from the neighbors' house, by the name of Tresor. Ah, ma chere, he has such a cute muzzle!
Pah, devil take it!… What rot!… How can one fill letters with such silliness? Give me a man! I want to see a man; I demand food-such as nourishes and delights my soul; and instead I get these trifles… let's skip a page, maybe it will get better:
… Sophie sat at her table sewing something. I was looking out the window, because I enjoy watching passers-by. When suddenly a lackey came in and said: "Teplov!" "Show him in," Sophie cried and rushed to embrace me… "Ah, Medji, Medji! If you knew who he is: dark hair, a kammerjunker, 5 and such eyes! dark and glowing like fire"-and Sophie ran to her room. A moment later a young kammerjunker with dark side-whiskers came in, went up to the mirror, smoothed his hair, and glanced around the room. I growled a little and kept my place. Sophie came out soon and bowed gaily to his scraping; and I, as if noticing nothing, just went on looking out the window; however, I cocked my head a little to one side and tried to hear what they were talking about. Ah, ma chere, such nonsense they talked about! They talked about a lady who performed one figure instead of another during a dance; also how a certain Bobov looked just like a stork in his jabot and nearly fell down; how a certain Miss Lidin fancies she has blue eyes, whereas they're green-and the like. "Well," thought I to myself, "and if we compare the kammerjunker with Tresor!" Heavens, what a difference! First of all, the kammerjunker has a perfectly smooth, broad face with side- whiskers around it, as if someone had tied it with a black band; while Tresor has a slender little muzzle and a white spot right on his forehead. Between Tresor's waist and the kam-merjunker's there's no comparing. The eyes, the gestures, the manners are not at all alike. Oh, what a difference! I don't know, ma chere, what she finds in her Teplov. Why does she admire him so?…
To me it also seems that there's something wrong here. It can't be that a kammerjunker could enchant her so. Let's see further on:
It seems to me that if she likes that kammerjunker, she'll soon be liking the clerk who sits in Papa's study. Ah, ma chere, if you only knew how ugly he is. A perfect turtle in a sack…
What clerk might this be?…
He has the strangest last name. He always sits and sharpens pens. The hair on his head looks very much like hay. Papa always sends him out instead of a servant.
I think the vile little dog is aiming at me. How is my hair like hay?
Sophie can never help laughing when she looks at him.