Little Apples

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