LAPDOGS AND BLOODHOUNDS
I called the local paper and placed an ad: “reputable dealer will buy tin soldiers made in USSR. Paying $1 and up a piece.”
I figured I had forty minutes until a rerun of last year’s Manchester United-Bolton match came on, so I leafed through The Lady with the Lapdog, a story about (the preface informed me) the “everyday horror of life.” I read and tried to make every line fit Umansky — like teenagers who, in my day, drew whiskers, glasses and Beatles-like mop tops on pictures of Politburo members in the newspaper.
Chekhov’s main character had a twelve-year-old daughter. He was married early. His wife aged more quickly than he did, and became a dowdy, mean-spirited fool, to the point where he never wanted to go home. He was a philologist, but worked in a bank and
