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✦ 269 ✦ 23 Ellochka the Cannibal according to researchers’ calculations, William Shakespeare ’s lexicon comprises twelve thousand words. The lexicon of a Negro from the cannibalistic tribe Mumbo-Jumbo comprises three hundred words. Ellochka Shchukina got by easily and freely with thirty. Here are the words, phrases, and interjections she judiciously chose out of the entire great, powerful, word-rich Russian language: 1. So rude. 2. Ho-ho! (This expresses, depending on the circumstances: irony, amazement, rapture, hatred, joy, disdain, and satisfaction .) 3. Outstanding. 4. Dismal. (Said about everything. For example: “dismal Petya came over,” “dismal weather,” “a dismal occasion,” “a dismal tomcat,” and so forth.) 5. Appalling. 6. Horror. (Horrible. For example, on running into a dear friend: “a horrible meeting.”) 7. Little fellow. (Said about all men of her acquaintance, regardless of age or social standing.) 8. Don’t teach me how to live. 9. Like . . . a baby. (“It was like taking candy from a baby,” said about a card game. “I smacked him like a baby’s bot- tom,” said, evidently, during a conversation with the responsible lessee.) 10. Be-e-e-yootiful! 11. Fat and handsome. (Used to characterize animate and inanimate objects.) 12. Let’s take a horse-cab. (Said to her husband.) 13. Let’s take a taxi-waxi. (To male acquaintances.) 14. Your back is all white. (A joke.) 15. Just think. 16. Ulya. (An affectionate ending for names. For example: Mishulya, Zinulya.) 17. Oho! (Irony, amazement, rapture, hatred, joy, disdain, and satisfaction.) The extremely insignificant number of remaining words served as communicative links between Ellochka and salesclerks . Upon examination of the photographs of Ellochka (one frontal view, one side view) hanging over the bed of her husband , the engineer Ernest Pavlovich Shchukin, it was not difficult to discern a pleasantly high, round forehead, large moist eyes, the dearest little nose in all of Moscow province, and a chin with a little beauty spot drawn on with mascara. Ellochka’s height flattered men. She was short, and even the shabbiest fellows looked like tall, powerful men next to her. As for distinguishing characteristics, she hadn’t any. Ellochka didn’t need them. She was pretty. The two hundred rubles her husband received each month from the Elektrochandelier factory was an insult to Ellochka. There was no way it could aid her in the grand battle Ellochka had been fighting for four years now, ever since she’d assumed the social standing of a housewife, Shchukin’s wife. All the forces at her command were dedicated to the battle. It swallowed up all their resources. Ernest Pavlovich brought extra 270 ✦ in moscow work home with him, denied the household a maid, acquired a primus stove, took out the trash, and even cooked up the meatballs. But it was a fruitless effort. Every year the dangerous enemy did more damage to their household finances. Four years ago, Ellochka had noticed that she had a rival across the ocean. Misfortune arrived at her doorstep on that joyous evening when Ellochka was trying on a very nice crepe de chine blouse. In this raiment she almost looked like a goddess. “Ho-ho,” she exclaimed, reducing the staggeringly complex feelings that had seized her down to this cannibalistic cry. In simplified form, these feelings could be expressed in a phrase such as: “Men will become agitated when they see me like this. They will begin trembling. They will follow me to the ends of the earth, stuttering from love. But I will be cold. Are they really worthy of me? I am the most beautiful woman alive. Nobody else on the planet has such an elegant blouse.” But she only had thirty words, so Ellochka chose the most expressive one of all: “ho-ho.” It was in just such a grand hour that Fima Sobak came over to see her. She swept in with January’s frosty breath and a French fashion magazine. Ellochka came to a halt on page one. The glossy photograph depicted the daughter of the American billionaire Vanderbilt in an evening gown. She saw furs and feathers, silk and pearls, an extraordinarily easy cut and a breathtaking hairstyle. That decided everything. “Oho!” Ellochka said to herself. That meant: “It’s either her or me.” The morning of the next day greeted Ellochka at the beauty salon, where she lost her beautiful long black braid and dyed her hair red. Then she was able to ascend one more rung on the ladder that was bringing her...

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