"Well, to whom do you want to write?"
"To Boleslav Kashput, at the town of Svieptziana, on the Warsaw
Road..."
"Well, fire away!"
"My dear Boles ... my darling ... my faithful lover. May the Mother of
God protect thee! Thou heart of gold, why hast thou not written for
such a long time to thy sorrowing little dove, Teresa?"
I very nearly burst out laughing. "A sorrowing little dove!" more than
five feet high, with fists a stone and more in weight, and as black a
face as if the little dove had lived all its life in a chimney, and
had never once washed itself! Restraining myself somehow, I asked:
"Who is this Bolest?"
"Boles, Mr. Student," she said, as if offended with me for blundering
over the name, "he is Boles--my young man."
"Young man!"
"Why are you so surprised, sir? Cannot I, a girl, have a young man?"
She? A girl? Well!
"Oh, why not?" I said. "All things are possible. And has he been your
young man long?"
"Six years."
"Oh, ho!" I thought. "Well, let us write your letter..."
And I tell you plainly that I would willingly have changed places with
this Boles if his fair correspondent had been not Teresa but something
less than she.
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