(A rather cozy though, at certain junctures, pretty screwed up interior of the study of a semi-middle-aged philosopher who has long since dropped out of giving a fuck about all that shit, however, the bookcase still emits the dull gleam of the golden embossing in the volumes’ spines.

The stout table is flanked on both sides by a pair of chairs created by the full of divine afflatus chisel of Chippendale, a cabinetmaker from conscientious London artisans.

On the bare tabletop, a Chinese cheep counterfeit of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek's microscope, which did open our eyes to the surrounding microbial world about us. Two or three Parisian nick-knacks for nonchalant amusements of a loner are casually dropped upon a pile of clippings from forgotten newspapers seen thru the press at the times of storming the fortress of Ochakov and consequent alienation of the Crimea.

From under that mess there hangs an engraving over the edge of the table – a Playboy poster from about the last decade of the 18th century. The caption grabs attention by use of those izhitsa and yat letters from the obsolete, pre-revolutionary spelling, and fills a long, fluffy, sausage-like cloud that hovers over a juicy lady who stands in profile on all fours atop of a trough fretted to chips by constant usage—her hoop-skirt crumpled and tacked up her laborious vertebral column, the corset flung open in the frank negligee of a suburban slut—runs: "And only by tireless handwork wilt thou come and reach the goal of thine striving!”

A tall bottle of dark glass, lacking its cork, stilled in a motionless round-dance along with a pair of glasses, one of which is empty.

The philosopher himself stands with his butt pushed chillily into the unlit fireplace to the right of the tall double-leaf door. In thoughtful silence he strokes the dimple, which looks like a pea print lost in the three-day stubble over his upper lip.

The unpretentiously quilted dressing gown is casually bound up over his hips with a tasseled waistband. The brocade in his attire is pretty worn, the diamonds patterned by the stitches in quilt seams bear occasional marks of encrusted spatters of coffee dried up with the flow of time, and irregular spills of sperm, crusted as well.

The head of the thinker is wrapped tightly in a long strip of cheap Turkish-made waffle towel, also in smears and smudges suggestive of smutty stimulation.

The philosopher's visitor, Count Nulin, who’s recently returned to the smokes of the kurnaya izbas of his Fatherland from the Heidelberg University, is sitting on Chip's chair, since Dale's chair is occupied by a peacefully dormant brown dachshund of a woeful fate, as evidenced by the bald rubbed-out spots in her short hair.

The shaggy mutton chop of the guest naively tries at concealing his absent ear’s stump, cut clear off by the rapier in a student duel.)

Nulin: (Hotly) But what’s after?!.

Charsky: (Leaves his dimple alone.) Why, my dearest, you still haven't touched your glass. And utterly in vain so. Some highly recommended drink, I promise you. As forwarded by our forthcoming classic, "Though the swill reeks it’s not meant for dogs’ dicks…"

(The quote is interrupted by the heart-rending howl of the dachshund all at once burst into life on Dale's chair.)

Mimi, you’re as always at ready with your unasked for censorship.

Nulin: (With his ardor unabated for a sliver of a notch.) Yes, but a continuation?!.

Charsky: (After waiting until Mimi has scratched all of her nude spots in turn and fallen asleep again.) Ah, so that’s what’s put you on the prod... well, it will undoubtedly follow. Fan fiction scribblers are constantly alerted to ride whoever’s coattails, you throw a gnawed bone at the jerks and they will blow it up into a balloon of three-season sequel…

Nulin: (Instructively) Oh, come on, fan fiction practices are by no means and not at all the belles-lettres, sublime examples of which we find in our, albeit not adequately washed yet Fatherland.

Charsky: Oho, my friend, you have not a little been warped into a nostalgic boob by that punky honky-dory Germany! I'll bet my bottom ruble, Sir, you have arrived back an all-round Slavophile. He-he... But as our homespun Westerners will twit you, ‘chirp up and check my titbit on Fri eve slews of lols’... We all, as condescends to note the literary berserk VB, got spilt out from The Greatcoat by Mykola Gogol, and here I would most modestly attach an aside – the picnic lasted not for long. Sad yet true, with the works of Michal Afanasych the Russian Literature, as such, came to expire their final breath.

The literary throne sees now the endless parade of one-night-stand Pretenders’ arses, hears the self-instructive slurring slurps on how to piss the marital bed over and be pleased as Punch, witnesses the mournful efforts of sophomore seminarians at labors to convey the shades of best-selling garbage on the global podium of mass consumption products, and nothing more for observation in our entire firmament.

Nulin: (Haughtily) Gogol – Bulgakov? From an impotent to a morphine addict? And that's that? Harsh is your verdict, Sir!. Besides, both of them waft off a surely pro-Ukrainian sniff... Why, in the light of growing vigilance and further rancid metamorphosis at the court of Their Imperial... you here run into the risk, deducible by a naked eye, of getting your hide branded for Voltairianism.

Charsky: If afraid of cute young ladies in muslin-wear, the playboy has to grow hair on his balls before attending balls…

And, as regards your innuendos to the recreational preferences of the great ones, then, Sir, such remarks are nothing but a sleeve stitched aloft the cunt, to voice the sage adage of my saddler. The man, a propos, is a pro in the like matters.…

After all, we, by and large, don’t give an eff about the color of the horse pulling the cart of firewood, we’re interested in the cargo. Discussions of the skin-deep properties of a chance intermediary supplier are good only for idle gossips in the lackey room. Let’s not create clay-legged idols nor boys for whipping. The culmination crowning the strain in defecation labors makes us all equal to each other, regardless of confession or race, or shifty whimsicalities in sex orientation, and equals us to any other living thing from any of one-cell transparent protozoans up to our classmates in the class of mammals.

Ben we none but only humus, a fallow field for the growth of the conductor, through whom spirituality beth brought down to our vale.

Where from?

The question is too transcendental.

Who’s the wright?

Over-combinatorial for an answer.

Let us take comfort in at least knowing through whom, not unlike the quivering shimmer of St. Elmo lights in the St. Vitus dance, descendeth spirituality to us.

And keep it marked as ineffaceable as the stars configuration in Ursa Major that wagoners are not creators. They are just drivers who turned up in the right place at the right moment equipped with a draft horse and a sturdy cart suitable for the purpose. But the preferences of the Messrs. Drivers themselves have nothing to do with the goods transported. Otherwise, given the enlightened age of homotoleration running nowadays so very high, the flood of The Swan Lakes would have surpassed the aggregate capacity of the Baikal Lake and the Caspian Sea, and The Nutcrackers’ quantities would suffice for a life-size copy of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. Which phenomenon we do not note as of yet…

(Charsky thoughtfully approaches the chair with prostrate Mimi, picks the tip of her tail and hoists, but after a brief glance in the guest’s direction, changes his mind and scratches the bald spot in her hide instead. The bitch, without ever waking up, purrs like a cat on heat, a kinda feline transvestite.)

And, while speaking of music... You must have heard already how at the ball thrown by the Yusupstein-Rurikurgantotskys that our notorious rogue... What’s his name again? The family name of that funny ring in it... like Rzhelenovskiy or something…

Nulin: (Readily) Lieutenant Rzhevsky?

Charsky: Nah, yeah, it’s him I’m talking about... Some perfect varmint... Surprised the visiting Miss of England with her humanitarian bonbonniere... Right on the slippery piano lid, without removing his hussar uniform, spurs and stuff... That’s a real virtuoso for you!

And by the bye, he invites me to pay him a visit in his Kolomenskoye. The estate’s not quite extensive, says he, but in the cellar he still keeps on ice an intact barrel of Amontillado.

His friend-in-spurs, chamberlain's diplomatic courier for special missions, on his way from Venice, delivered.

To go or not to go?

( He takes a Valdai bell from the mantelpiece and tinkles.

His serf Gerasim, tousled and sleepy and, on top of all, deaf-mute servant, appears thru the door.)

Geraska! Right to the stable! Tell Vaska, Master has ordered to rig the carriage up! Yet, not with that Savraska mare!. Let him harness Covid, the brown brute looks bored recently…

(Gerasim exits stuttering eager moos and baas).

Nulin: (Pleadingly) But still and yet, Appolinary Aristarkhovych... what’s on about Kenty? and Maya has not yet born Buddha…

Charsky: Everything will be fine, Edgar Poelimpsestovych, just oftener trust in the mischievous imp of luck and regularly air the scarlet sails of hope beneath the jolly roger hoisted naughtily... Just easy with using of that opium for people, the choice of synthetic drugs has grown enormously since Marx' days…

Ha! Amontillado!

(With an anticipating pleonastic ring)

The sound form of it alone caresses gourmet’s palate, if the gift of hearing is not denied the wretch.

* * *