Samples from the Condolences folder:

Reader A:

Sorry to hear about Hamster. Was actually reminded by your description of these lines from Graham Greene: “I wrote there that phrase ‘in normal circumstances’ because I met him first at Harry Lime’s funeral. It was February, and the gravediggers had been forced to use electric drills to open the frozen ground in Vienna’s Central Cemetery. It was as if even nature were doing its best to reject Lime, but we got him in at last and laid the earth back on him like bricks.”

[Me:] Thanks a lot–now I have that wretched “Third Man” theme jangling away in my head–Dang da dang, da dang da dang (dang! dang! dang!)…

Reader B:

[Quoting me] “Out there in the subzero dawn, shabby old winter jacket thrown on, morning ablutions not yet performed, swinging away at permafrost with pick & shovel, I felt like a zek in some Solzhenitsyn story.” You sure you’re not a Calvinist or something? Condolences to the daughter, in any case.

[My reply:] If it was good enough for Euler, it’d be good enough for me… if I’d been brought up with it.

Reader C:

Condolences to Nellie. Your full-on attention to all the appropriate actions are truly indicative of your full-on fatherhood.

[Me:] One does one’s best. Flattery always welcome. A year’s free subscription to that reader, please, Kathryn.

Reader D:

I have a vision of you out back this morning in a … zek “uni” with holes in the knees. Makes me smile, for some inexplicable reason. I wonder if you care more for the poor rodent’s death than your daughter. If not, condolences to her from yet another stranger…

[Me:] I don’t much care about the rodent. Human beings first, always. Hearing that the prince’s stables have burned down in Book 10 of the Analects, Confucius asks “Was any man hurt?” He didn’t ask about the horses. In those days, when a horse was more valuable than a man, this was very striking. I’m with the Master on this, and a great many other things, too. Hamsters must shift for themselves, my job is to comfort my girl.

Reader E:

Derb—Your Corner item may have evoked Solzhenitsyn; but for me it evoked Akaky Akakyevich still more. I think it was the mention of the shabby overcoat that did it. I don’t know whether to offer condolences on the passing of the hamster, or furtive felicitations on now having a varmintless home. (I’m in the midst of negotiations with my kiddos right now. Daughter has gotten the idea of a turtle in her head…but a gecko or similar would be much easier to keep it seems. Not to mention that its lifespan would be a good 40 years shorter.)

[Me:] This learned reader is alluding to a famous short story by the most Russian writer of them all, Nikolai Gogol. Before reading Gogol, read Nabokov’s little biography of him–the book that introduced the word poshlust to the English language. It’s pure distilled Nabokov–the book begins with Gogol’s death and ends with his birth (as I recall). Lots of stuff about noses. Anyway, I’d say nix on the gecko. Those things can drive you up the wall.

Reader F:

Derb—Your house doesn’t sound like a very healthy environment for hamsters. Here’s hoping that other rodents don’t fare any better there. There’s a mouse on the loose in my kitchen – would you care to adopt it?

[Me:] You sure it’s not a Siberian hamster? As to the implied slur on Mrs. Derb’s housewifely skills: Remember Hilbert, a cheerful companion to me for many months, who passed away at a friend’s house a couple of days into our summer vacation. Bernadette outlived Hilbert by six months. What was it P.J. O’Rourke said? Something like: “Women get all the breaks. Men’s only satisfaction is, that we die first.”

Reader G:

[Quoting me] “I shall not attempt any formal elegy…” What are you talking about? You have a perfect line to hang the rest of an elegy on right there: “Now I must go and hack a grave from the frozen soil…”

[Me:] Does sound like a Russian poem, doesn’t it? Yesenin, perhaps.