Even the ancients called those to account who married without insisting on a dowry. (Ichthyosaurus, XII.3)

I prescribed for myself horses, a loge in the dress circle, began imbibing vinum gallicum rubrum, and bought myself a seven hundred–ruble fur coat. In short, I set out on a life of a lege artis nature.

My wife’s habitus was passable. Height: average. Skin and mucous membranes: normal. Subcutaneous layer of fat: adequate. Chest: satisfactory (no crackling). Vesicular breathing: regular heart sounds.

Psychological diagnosis: the only deviation from the norm is that my wife is chatty and somewhat loud. I am now suffering from acoustic hyperesthesia of the right auditory nerve. Whenever I examine a patient’s tongue I think of my wife, a thought that leads to an increased heart rate. How right the philosopher was who maintained: Lingua est hostis hominum amicusque diaboli et feminarum.

Mater feminae, my mother-in-law (a mammal), suffers from the same ailments as my wife: when the two of them spend twenty-three hours out of twenty-four shouting at the top of their lungs, I show signs of mental derangement, combined with suicidal tendencies.

As my esteemed medical colleagues will confirm, nine-tenths of all women suffer from a condition that Charcot has defined as hyperesthesia of the vocal organs. The remedy he suggests is amputation of the tongue, an operation with which he promises to rid mankind of one of its worst ailments. But alas! Billroth, who carried out this operation on numerous occasions, attests in his memoirs that after the operation women learned to speak by using their fingers, which had an even more deleterious effect on their husbands. (Memor. Acad., 1878) I propose a different course of treatment (cf. my dissertation). Amputation of the tongue should be performed, as Charcot proposes, but, relying on Professor Billroth’s findings, I suggest combining said amputation with a directive that the subject be made to wear mittens. (I have noted that individuals suffering from muteness who wear mittens are wordless even when hung.)

AN EDITOR’S ROMANCE

Asmall, straight nose, a beautiful bust, delightful hair, and exquisite eyes—not a single typographical error. I line-edited her and we married.

“You must belong to me alone,” I told her on the day of our wedding. “I will not tolerate your being serialized. Remember that.”

The day after the wedding I already noticed a slight change in my wife. Her hair was not as lustrous, her cheeks not as beguilingly pale, her eyelashes not so diabolically black, but reddish. Her movements were not as soft, her words not as gentle. Alas! A wife is a bride that has been half disallowed by the censor.

In the first six months I surprised her with a cadet who was kissing her (cadets love complimentary pleasures). I gave her a first warning, and once more in the strictest possible terms forbade all general distribution.

In the second six months she presented me with a bonus: a little son. I looked at him, looked in the mirror, looked at him again, and said to my wife: “This is a clear case of plagiarism, my dear. It’s as plain as the nose on this child’s face.