“What a pity, darling: my husband says that this summer we won’t have a carriage, because there is no cholera, and there won’t be carriages to take doctors from the city.”
“So you’re saying we won’t have to go on our promenades in a donated carriage!”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1874)
Cholera made them relatives,
Smallpox gave them brotherhood,
Death united them forever
And called them friends.
Their visit dismays people,
They all know this truth:
That one will put us in the grave,
This one will dump us under the slab.
Because you won’t die without them,
And all outcomes will end up
being those that you will call
directly by the name: twins.
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1874)
A tempera painting workshop
A remarkably beautiful young girl, wishing to take shelter from seducers, comes to beg a young assistant to paint her face with frightful marks of smallpox. [“Rapin” is richer with meaning than “assistant,” and designates a painter without talent, but possessing bohemian allure.]
(Le Journal amusant, Paris, 1874)
Teacher (to schoolchildren): “Because smallpox is rampant and it is contagious, you must tell me immediately if someone in your home gets sick.”
Lina (the next day): “Mr. Teacher, last night my mother got really sick, she got a little baby; it’s already fine to be around her, because she says that it is not contagious!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1874)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 