Well, good-morning, I am with you again. To-day my mistress, Sophie.——
Ah! now we shall see—something about Sophie. Oh! confound it!... Never mind! never mind! Let’s go on:
My mistress, Sophie, was in a great muddle. She was getting ready for a ball, and I was very glad she would be out, so that I could write to you. My Sophie is perfectly devoted to balls, although she nearly always gets cross when she’s dressing for them. I cannot conceive, ma chère, what can be the pleasure of going to balls. Sophie comes home from them at six o’clock in the morning, and nearly always looks so pale and thin that I can see at once they haven’t given the poor girl anything to eat there. I confess that I couldn’t live like that. If I didn’t get my woodcock with sauce, or the wing of a roast chicken, I—really I don’t know what I should do. I like pudding with sauce, too, but carrots or turnips or artichokes are no good at all.
What an extraordinarily uneven style! One can see at once it wasn’t written by a human being; it begins all right and properly, and ends in this doggish fashion. Let’s see another letter. This seems rather a long one. H’m, and it isn’t dated.
Oh, my dearest, how I feel the approach of spring! My heart beats as if yearning for something. There is a constant singing in my ears, so that I often raise one foot and stand for several moments listening at the doors. I will confide to you that I have many suitors. Oh! if you knew how hideous some of them are! Sometimes there’s a great, coarse, mongrel watch-dog, fearfully stupid—you can see it written on his face—who struts along the street and imagines that he’s a very important personage and that everybody is looking at him. Not a bit of it! I take no more notice than if I didn’t see him at all. Then there’s such a frightful mastiff that stops before my window. If he were to stand on his hind paws (which the vulgar creature probably doesn’t know how to do) he’d be a whole head taller than my Sophie’s papa, who is rather a tall man, and stout too. This blockhead appears to be frightfully impertinent. I growled at him, but he took no notice at all; he didn’t even frown. He lolled out his tongue, hung down his monstrous ears, and stared in at the window—like a common peasant! But do you imagine, ma chère, that my heart is cold to all entreaties? Ah! no.... If you could see one young beau who jumps across the fence from next door! His name is Trèzor.... Oh, my dearest! what a sweet muzzle he has!
The devil take it all! What rubbish! And fancy filling up one’s letter with nonsense of that kind. Give me a man! I want to see a human being, I demand that spiritual food that would satisfy my thirsting soul, and instead of that, all this stuff.... Let’s see another page, perhaps it’ll be better.
Sophie was sitting at the table sewing something. I was looking out of the window, because I like watching the passers-by. Suddenly a footman came in and announced, “Teplòv.” “Ask him in,” cried Sophie, and flew to embrace me. “Oh, Medji, Medji! if only you knew who it is: a Kammerjunker,[[16]] dark, and with such eyes! Quite black, and as bright as fire.” And she ran away to her room. A minute afterwards there came in a young Kammerjunker, with black whiskers. He went up to the mirror, set his hair straight, and looked about the room. I growled and sat down in my place. Presently Sophie came in, looking very happy. He clinked his spurs and she bowed. I pretended not to notice anything, and went on looking out of the window, but I turned my head a little on one side and tried to overhear their conversation. Oh, ma chère, what rubbish they talked! They talked about how, at a dance, one lady had made a mistake and done the wrong figure; then about how a certain Bobòv, with a jabot on, looked very like a stork and nearly tumbled down; then about how a certain Lìdina imagines that her eyes are blue, whereas they are green—and so on. I cannot think, ma chère, what she finds in her Teplòv. Why is she so enchanted with him?...
It seems to me, too, that there’s something wrong here. It’s quite impossible that Teplòv could bewitch her so. What comes next?
Really, if she can like this Kammerjunker, it seems to me she might as well like the official who sits in papa’s study. Oh, ma chère, if you knew what a fright he is! Exactly like a tortoise in a bag....
What official can that be?