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.
You're lying, you cursed dog! What a vile tongue! As if I don't know it's a matter of envy. As if I don't know whose tricks these are. These are the section chief's tricks. The man has sworn undying hatred-and so he injures me, he keeps injuring me at every step. However, let's look at another letter. Maybe the thing will explain itself.
Ma chere Fidele, you must excuse my not writing for so long. I've been in perfect ecstasy. It's entirely correct what some writer has said, that love is a second life. Besides, there are big changes in our house now. The kammerjunker now comes every day. Sophie loves him to distraction. Papa is very happy. I even heard from our Grigory, who sweeps the floor and almost always talks to himself, that there will be a wedding soon; because Papa absolutely wants to see Sophie married to a general, or a kammerjunker, or an army colonel…
Devil take it! I can't read any more… It's all either kammerjunker or general. All that's best in the world, all of it goes either to kammerjunkers or generals. You find a poor treasure for yourself, hope to reach out your hand to it-a kammerjunker or a general plucks it away from you. Devil take it! I wish I could become a general myself: not so as to get her hand and the rest of it, no, I want to be a general simply to see how they'll fawn and perform all those various courtly tricks and equivocations, and then to tell them I spit on them both. Devil take it. How annoying! I've torn the stupid dog's letters to shreds.
December 3.
It can't be. Lies! The wedding won't take place! So what if he's a kammerjunker. It's nothing more than a dignity; it's not anything visible that you can take in your hands. He's not going to have a third eye on his forehead because he's a kammerjunker. His nose isn't made of gold, it's the same as mine or anybody else's; he doesn't eat with it, he smells; he doesn't cough, he sneezes. Several times already I've tried to figure out where all these differences come from. What makes me a titular councillor, and why on earth am I a titular councillor? Maybe I'm some sort of count or general and only seem to be a titular councillor? Maybe I myself don't know who I am. There are so many examples in history: some simple fellow, not only not a nobleman, but simply some tradesman or even peasant-and it's suddenly revealed that he's some sort of dignitary, or sometimes even an emperor. If even a muzhik sometimes turns out like that, what, then, may become of a nobleman? Suddenly, for instance, I walk in wearing a general's uniform: an epaulette on my right shoulder, and an epaulette on my left shoulder, a blue ribbon over my shoulder-what then? How is my beauty going to sing? What is Papa himself, our director, going to say? Oh, he's a man of great ambition! He's a Mason, a downright Mason, though he pretends to be this and that, I noticed right away he's a Mason: whenever he shakes a person's hand, he only holds out two fingers. But can't I be promoted this minute to governor general, or intendant, or something else like that? I'd like to know, what makes me a titular councillor? Why precisely a titular councillor?