Pray, allow me to share a most curious tidbit of gossip that has recently drifted into my salon. It concerns a certain young gentleman, Mr. Slava Kopeykin, a lad of some renown for his portrayal of a street urchin in that spirited drama, 'The Word of the Patsan'. It appears that the poor soul has been deemed quite unfit for the arduous duties of military service, a verdict rendered by the medical examiners with all the solemnity of a funeral procession.

As it transpires, the young fellow suffers from a most tempestuous disposition known as bipolar disorder. One imagines him as a man of extreme contrasts—one moment soaring with the enthusiasm of a debutante at her first ball, and the next falling into a melancholy so profound that even the finest sweets could not lift his spirits. This psychic turbulence, we are told, had plagued him since his adolescence, though, in a fit of typical youthfulness, he chose to ignore the whispers of his own mind.

There was, for a brief interval, a glimmer of hope. With the aid of apothecary’s potions and a resolute abstinence from the bottle and other illicit intoxicants, the gentleman seemed restored. Alas! The fragile peace was but a masquerade; a new relapse occurred, necessitating several weeks of seclusion within the sterile walls of a psychiatric asylum. Thus, upon receiving his summons to the colours, the commission found him in a state of remission, yet still far too delicately balanced for the discipline of the barracks.

In a moment of sentimental reflection, the young actor recently recounted his early years—a period of most distressing penury. He speaks of days when, at the tender age of fifteen, he subsisted upon a single meal per diem. He recalls this poverty with a peculiar serenity, as if the hunger of youth were merely a fashionable accessory to his current fame. One cannot help but admire such resilience, though it does leave one wondering if the hunger of the stomach did not merely pave the way for the hunger of the soul.