The phlegmatic woman is a hefty, pop-eyed, flour-white German woman of means prone to tears. She calls to mind a sack of flour. She is born to become a mother-in-law, a condition toward which she strives.
The Melancholic Man. Gray-blue eyes, brimming with tears. There are deep lines on his forehead and on either side of his nose. His mouth is somewhat crooked, his teeth black. He inclines to hypochondria, forever complaining of a pain in the pit of his stomach, a stitch in his side, and weak digestion. His favorite pastime is to stand before a mirror eyeing his limp tongue. He believes his lungs are weak and that he is suffering from a nervous condition, and consequently drinks herbal potions instead of tea, and elixir of life instead of vodka. With sorrow and in a faltering voice, he informs those near and dear to him that laurel tinctures and valerian drops are not availing. He feels that it would not be amiss to take a purgative once a week. He long ago decided that doctors do not understand him. Faith healers and healeresses, quacks, drunken field medics, and sometimes midwives give him succor. He dons a heavy winter coat in September and only takes it off in May. He suspects rabies in every dog, and ever since a friend informed him that a cat is capable of suffocating a sleeping man, he sees in every feline an implacable enemy of mankind. He drew up his will long ago. He swears by God and the Holy Bible that he never touches alcohol, but from time to time will imbibe warm beer. He marries a destitute orphan. If he does have a mother-in-law, he idealizes her as the epitome of brilliance and wisdom, listening to her pontifications with rapture, his head tilted to the side. Kissing her plump, clammy hands, redolent of sour pickles, he considers to be the holiest of duties. He pursues an active correspondence with uncles, aunts, his godmother, and childhood friends. He doesn’t read newspapers: he used to read The Moscow Daily, but as he felt his stomach constricting, his heart racing, and his eyes glazing over, he gave it up. He secretly reads Auguste Debay and Jozan de Saint-André’s books on conjugal hygiene. When the plague descended on Vetlyansk he devoutly resolved to fast five times. He is beset by nightmares and fits of weeping. He is not particularly happy in the civil service, and never rises above the rank of a minor section chief. He likes singing the old folk song “Luchinushka.” In an orchestra, he is the flute or the violoncello. He sighs night and day, which is why I advise against sleeping in the same room with him. He foretells floods, earthquakes, wars, the moral decline of mankind, and his own death from some agonizing illness. He dies of heart disease, cures administered by faith healers, and often of hypochondria.
The melancholic woman is the most unbearable and fretful of creatures. As a wife, she drives her husband to desperation and suicide. The one good thing is that it is not difficult to get rid of her: give her some money and she will set off on a pilgrimage.
The Choleric-Melancholic Man. In his early years he is a sanguine youth, but the instant a black cat crosses his path or the devil clouts him on the head, he turns into a choleric-melancholic individual. I am speaking of my illustrious Moscow neighbor, the exalted editor of the Zritel magazine. Ninety-nine percent of our Slavophile nationalists are choleric-melancholics, as are all unacknowledged poets, pater patriae, Jupiters, unacknowledged Demosthenes, and cuckolded husbands. Choleric-melancholic men are all those who are weakest in body but strongest in voice.
8 Latin: “cure like with like.” [Translator]
9 “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” [Translator]
SALON DES VARIÉTÉS
“Cabbie! Are you asleep, dammit? Get me to the Salon des Variétés!”
“Um . . . ah . . . the saloon day very tea? That’ll be thirty kopecks, sir.”
Lit by lanterns: the entrance and a lone constable loitering outside. A ruble and twenty kopecks to get in and twenty kopecks to check your coat (the latter, however, is not mandatory). You barely put your foot inside the door when the potent stench of shoddy boudoirs and bathhouse changing rooms washes over you. The guests are slightly tipsy. Incidentally, I would discourage a visit to the salon by anyone who is—how shall I put it—not at least three, if not four, sheets to the wind. It is a fundamental requirement. If a guest arrives with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his bleary eye, it is a good sign: it is unlikely that he will die of boredom, and he might even get a small taste of bliss. Unlucky is the teetotaler who ventures into the Salon des Variétés. It is doubtful that he will take a shine to it, and when he gets home he will give his sons a good hiding so they will know better than to visit the salon when they grow up. Tipsy guests totter up the stairs, hand the doorman their ticket, enter the hall filled with portraits of the great, brace themselves, and plunge bravely into the hurly-burly, stumbling through all the rooms, from door to door, thirsting to catch a peek of something rare. They push and jostle as if looking for something. What a seething hodgepodge of faces, colors, and smells! Ladies—red, blue, green, black, variegated and piebald, like three-kopeck woodblock prints. The same ladies were here last year and the year before—and you will see them here next year, too. Not a single décolleté, as they are in corsets and bloomers and . . . have no busts worth mentioning. And what strange and marvelous names: Blanche, Mimi, Fanny, Emma, Isabella. You will not find a single Matryonna, Mavra, or Pelageya.
The dust is terrible! Specks of powder and paint hang in the air in a haze of alcoholic fumes. You cannot breathe, and the urge to sneeze tickles your nose.
“What a rude man you are!”
“Me? Ah . . . hmm, well, permit me to express to you in prose that I am fully up-to-date on feminine ideas. Allow me to escort you.”
“How dare you, young man! You had better introduce yourself first, and wine and dine me a little!”
An officer hurries over, grabs the lady by the shoulders, turning her away from the young man so that she faces him. The young man is not pleased. He pauses, decides to take offense, grabs the lady by the shoulders, and turns her so she faces him again.
A big German with an oafish, inebriated face stumbles through the crowd. He emits a loud belch for all to hear. A pockmarked little man comes shuffling up behind him, clasps his hand, and shakes it.
“F-f-fool!” the German says.
“I wish to express my sincerest gratitude for your sincere belch,” the little man says.
“Um . . . ja . . . th-th-thank!”
By the entrance a crowd has gathered. Two young merchants are gesticulating furiously at each other in blind hatred. One merchant is red as a lobster, the other pale. Needless to say, they are both drunk as lords.
“How about . . . I punch you in the mug!”
“You ass!”
“No, You’re an ass yourself! You . . . philanthropist!”
“You rat! Why are you waving your arms around? Go on, punch me! Go on!”
“Gentlemen!” a woman’s voice rings out from the crowd. “How unseemly to use such language in front of ladies!”