I'm only whining now because of the pain and cold - though I'm not licked yet ... it takes a lot to keep a good dog down.

    But my poor old body's been knocked about by people once too often. The trouble is that when that cook doused me with boiling water it scalded through right under my fur and now there's nothing to keep the cold out on my left side. I could easily get pneumonia - and if I get that, citizens, I'll die of hunger. When you get pneumonia the only thing to do is to lie up under someone's front doorstep, and then who's going to run round the dustbins looking for food for a sick bachelor dog? I shall get a chill on my lungs, crawl on my belly till I'm so weak that it'll only need one poke of someone's stick to finish me off. And the dustmen will pick me up by the legs and sling me on to their cart . . .

    Dustmen are the lowest form of proletarian life. Humans' rubbish is the filthiest stuff there is. Cooks vary - for instance, there was Vlas from Prechistenka, who's dead now. He saved I don't know how many dogs' lives, because when you're sick you've simply got to be able to eat and keep your strength up. And when Vlas used to throw you a bone there was always a good eighth of an inch of meat on it. He was a great character. God rest his soul, a gentleman's cook who worked for Count Tolstoy's family and not for your stinking Food Rationing Board. As for the muck they dish out there as rations, well it makes even a dog wonder. They make soup out of salt beef that's gone rotten, the cheats. The poor fools who eat there can't tell the difference. It's just grab, gobble and gulp.

    A typist on salary scale 9 gets 60 roubles a month. Of course her lover keeps her in silk stockings, but think what she has to put up with in exchange for silk. He won't just want to make the usual sort of love to her, he'll make her do it the French way. They're a lot of bastards, those Frenchmen, if you ask me - though they know how to stuff their guts all right, and red wine with everything. Well, along comes this little typist and wants a meal. She can't afford to go into the restaurant on 60 roubles a month and go to the cinema as well. And the cinema is a woman's one consolation in life. It's agony for her to have to choose a meal . . .