The controversial question of plague

Son: “Papa, what’s plague? Is it pestering us?”
Father: “It’s your mama.”
Mother: “Will you leave me alone, you obnoxious brute?!”
Father: “Leave alone! There’s the first instance of the unobtrusiveness of the plague.”
(Strekoza, St. Petersburg, 1879)
(Notwithstanding the flatfooted sexism of this cartoon, there was a recurrence of actual plague in Russia at this time.)