Dear Marion,

It's obviously much easier to write letters about this
and that, than to confront sentence by sentence and paragraph
by paragraph the circumstance that I will never ever find
a place even in the remotest shadow of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I keep trying none the less.

The saga of the little dog's love affair with the unresponsive
senile old man continues. Yesterday Margaret and I had to make
a trip to the nearest Home Depot, 13 miles across the mountain
and 28 miles south on Interstate 81, to buy a new washing
machine, ours having worn out after more than 50 years' coping
with the family's dirty linen. On the return trip we stopped
at the Chilhowie supermarket for tomatoes, milk, cottage cheese,
and not least a 10 Kg. sack of dog food. Before leaving, I had
given him a slice of pumpernickel with margarine. When we returned
he was right there, asking, what had we brought back for him.
As I unloaded the contents of the van into the garage, he was 
right there, wagging his tail, jumping into the van, scurrying
under the seats. I had emptied the car, I closed the tail-gate,
making sure not to slam it on him. I was also careful to make
certain the falling portcullis of the garage door did not
impale him. Later that evening I scissored open the dog food sack
and set three handfuls, suitably moistened with water in a
Cool-Whip container out on the lawn, next to the clothes line
pole at the place where I had fed him before. Later that evening
I noted to my surprise that the dog food had not been touched.
The visitor was nowhere in sight. This morning, nothing had
changed. The food untouched, no sign of the dog. I began to
hope that I had seen the last of him. I felt foolish about having
spent the thirty dollars for Rabvac-3, twelve for the vaccine, three
for the container and fifteen for overnight delivery. The 17 lb.
sack of dog food also seemed a foolish extravagance. I told Margaret
that we, she and I, would have no choice but to eat the dog food
ourselves, so as not to waste it. She usually complies with all
my suggestions, but about this one, without explicitly refusing,
she seemed somewhat sceptical. In any case, I was relieved and
looked forward to a dogless existence. Home Depot had promised
to deliver the new washer some time after noon. To facilitate
the delivery, I decided to pull the car away from the garage doors
behind the retaining wall, and as I opened the door of the van:
being smarter than I am, you guessed it, there was my mini-Mephisto
(the allusion is to Goethe's Faust), virtually voiceless as he is,
having spent the night apparently virtuously house-broken, chewing
on one of the pillows with which Margaret and I cushion ourselves
and as needed the electronic equipment that we transport on our trips.
Well, there he was, little as life, ear-pointing and tail-wagging
as ever, standing and jumping on his hind legs, demanding to be
picked up, to be admitted into the house, to be granted his rightful
place in the family. He's a character sized for a yet unwritten tale,
like those of the Brothers Grimm. No, I haven't let him come in.
If I did, he would metamorphose into - you tell me what.

Thank you for your advice about wrapping his snout in a rag before
giving him the rabies vaccine. I intend three needleless trial-runs
rewarded with a piece of fried chicken, smoked turkey or tuna.
I expect to give him a detailed explanation of the proposed prophylaxis,
including possible side effects, and I won't proceed without his
informed consent, which I'm sure he will give. This afternoon, when
the truck that delivered the washing machine had left, the little
black dog brought a friend, a brownish one four times his size.
For a few minutes, they pranced around the lawn together, then
disappeared into the monstrous hemlock hedge on the trimming of
which I gave up a year or two ago. And even now he's scratching
on the screen door, demanding to be let in, so that he can
metamorphose into his real self. But winter is on its way,
and the future, for all of us, looms very uncertain.

Jochen