"Well, you don't seem to have a lot of new stuff this week, do you? Only three new books. Please renew my subscriptions to The Eglantine and The Land. By the way, do you have Belshe's Love In Nature? Which edition? Sytin's? No, I would prefer Sablin's. Oh, and what about The Children Of Sin by Catulle Mendès? But, please, not the Sphinx edition -- their translation is pretty sloppy. And what's this? Not a bad volume. Printed by Golike and Vilborg, of course? Great choice of what to publish -- Eugene Onegin, something everyone knows by heart anyway. And who did the illustrations? Samokish-Sudkovskaya? A bit too kitschy. And the format is too wide -- makes it hard to read, lying down!"
Stage Two (1920)
"Miss! I requested 72 titles from your library's catalog, and you don't seem to have a single one. What am I to do?"
"Pick something from that stack on the desk. That's all that's left."
"Hmmm! Here are three or four more or less acceptable ones: A Description Of the Ancient Monuments Of the Olonets Province; The Reborn String Can Once Again Sing; Makar the Murderer; and The Collected Speeches Of Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield)..."
"Well, so just take any one."
"Listen... Is The Monuments Of the Olonets Province interesting?"
"Yes, yes, it's interesting. Don't hold up the line."
Stage Three
"Did you hear the news?!"
"What, what?"
"The Ivikovs found an old book under their dresser! It'd been there since 1917! What luck. They're having a party to celebrate."
"And what's the title of the book?"
"Who cares what the title is -- it's a book! 480 pages! The Pustoshkins, the Bildyayevs, the Rossomakhins and the Partachevs have already signed up to read it."
"I guess I'll run over there and sign up, too."
"Don't be late. I hear the Ivikovs are planning to tear the book into 10 small ones, 48 pages each, and sell them."
"What -- each with no beginning, and no end?"
"Oh, pshaw. As if that mattered."
Stage Four
Advertisement:
"Well-known reciter of Pushkin's poetry attends family soirées, by invitation. Can read all of Poltava and all of Eugene Onegin. Price by agreement. Also directs dances and rents out ice-cream machine."
Conversation at the soirée:
"How do you know Pushkin's poetry so well?"
"I learned it by heart."
"Who taught you? Pushkin himself?"
"No, not Pushkin. He's dead. I learned it from a book, back when there were books."
"Did he have good handwriting?"
"What does handwriting have to do with it? The book was printed."
"I'm sorry... What do you mean?"
"Well, here's what they used to do: they would cast letters out of lead, stick one next to the other, put some black paint over them, place a sheet of paper against them and press really hard -- and the words would get printed onto the paper."
"Wow, that's so far out! Please sit down! Have a cigarette! Olya, Petya, Gulya -- come here and listen, Mr. Gortannikov is telling us about the kind of tricks that Pushkin used to pull! Did you get the ice-cream machine from him, too?"
Stage Five
"Listen to me! I know you're just a corner-shop owner, but maybe you'll understand a cry for help from an old Russian intellectual, and do me this favor."
"What's the matter?"
"Look... When you lock up your shop for the night, you don't need your sign, do you? Let me take it and read it before I go to bed -- I just can't fall asleep without reading. And the text is so instructive -- soap, and candles, and sour cream -- all kinds of things. I'll read it and give it back."
"Oh yeah, sure... You all say that. The other day, some guy asked to borrow the cover from a box of Georges Bormann biscuits, and never returned it. And it had a picture on it, and all kinds of letters... I have a growing son, too, you know."
Stage Six
"Where are you coming from, Ivan Nikolayevich?"
"I was taking a walk outside of town. Admiring the gallows out by the highway."
"Some entertainment -- looking at gallows!"
"Oh, don't say that. Actually, I mostly do it for reading's sake: one gallows looks like an 'H,' another, like a 'T' -- I just read them and move on... After all, reading is food for the mind."