to win her heart, so it’s in a good cause. When I get hold of the silly woman’s fortune, I can be of great social utility.’ They have this social justification for every nasty thing they do! ‘Anyway it’s better than your Pushkin’s poetry,’ he said, ‘for I’ve managed to advocate enlightenment even in that.’ I understand what he means about Pushkin, I quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about women’s feet. But wasn’t Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity of these fellows! ‘On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object of my affections’—he thought of that for a title. He’s a waggish fellow.
A captivating little foot, Though swollen and red and tender! The doctors come and plasters put, But still they cannot mend her.
Yet, ’tis not for her foot I dread— A theme for Pushkin’s muse more fit— It’s not her foot, it is her head: I tremble for her loss of wit!
For as her foot swells, strange to say, Her intellect is on the wane— Oh, for some remedy I pray That may restore both foot and brain!