“Photographed under a microscope.”
(Oskolki, St. Petersburg, 1898)
“Mademoiselle, may I take your hand in marriage! I love you passionately, madly…”
“Oh my, I’m not sure… Are you in a position to keep your wife? My mommy can only let me get married under these conditions…”
“Oh, I have a terrific social position… in the cooler of a small shop, in a vat with salted fish… We can live there with your mom as well! There’s room for everyone!”
“Are these all your little bacilli?”
“Yes, I have three thousand of them: sons and daughters… Many are already married… This is only a small portion of my family…”
“Excellent, excellent! I love such exemplary fathers… You are a true citizen of the bacillus realm!”
“My dear, aren’t we so very happy together?”
“Oh, we are so happy, so happy that I’m even scared of our happiness! It all frightens me… Some sort of premonition tells me that our happiness will not last long!”
“But what could interfere with us, my darling?”
“What? Disinfection!”
“Oh my, oh my! This is so embarrassing!… This is so shameful!”
“What happened, Katie?”
“Oh my, do you mean to say you can’t see? We’re being looked at under a microscope, and we’re not dressed!”
“Greetings, mademoiselle!”
“Excuse me, I don’t know you…”
“What do you mean, you don’t know me!… We’re neighbors and you might even say countrymen: we were born and raised in the same cesspool… Where would you like to direct your charming feet?”
“I still don’t even know myself: to someone’s nose or ear.”
“Listen, Annette, you have to marry him… He’s a microbe with standing and means…”
“But mama, he’s an old man!”
“It’s nothing that he’s an old man.”
“And what’s more, he’s scary like diphtheria serum!”
Sic Transit Pestilentia 