This little book bites like a flea! (Albeit the titular flea, rather than biting, prances, capers and performs graceful “dansez”). I loved this short story. The bitter irony with which the tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I are portrayed makes me wonder how in the world the text got past the Empire’s draconian censorship. Their childish, gullible selves, along with the author’s mockery of Russians’ touted superiority, are among the elements that make for a hilarious read. Not to mention the satire that doesn’t refrain from plummeting down on the Englishmen as well. The language is fitted to the general atmosphere of high-ranking naïveté vs. lowly, provincial cunning of the gunsmiths: made-up and distorted words add to the wackiness of it all.
