Dear Aleksandr Ivanovich,

I have heard that you are saving money and have already saved thirty-five thousand. What for? Why save money? Why not share what you have with those who do not even have a totally spare pair of trousers? I mean, what is money? I have studied this question. I possess photographs of the banknotes in widest circulation: to the value of a rouble, three, four and even five roubles. I have heard of banknotes of an intrinsic worth of up to 30 roubles at a time! But, as for saving them: what for? Well, I am not a collector. I have always despised collectors who amass stamps, feathers, buttons, onions and so on. They are stupid, dull superstitious people. I know for example that what are called 'numismatists' -- that's those who accumulate coins -- have the superstitious habit of putting them, have you ever thought where? Not on the table, not in a box, but... on their books! What do you think of that? Whereas money can be picked up, taken to a shop and exchanged, well... let's say for soup (that's a kind of food), or for grey-mullet sauce (that's also a kind of foodstuff).

No, Aleksandr Ivanovich, you are almost as couth a person as I, yet you save money and don't change it into a range of other things. Forgive me, dear Aleksandr Ivanovich, but that is not terribly clever! You've simply gone a little stupid living out there in the provinces. There must be no one to talk to, even. I'm sending you my picture so that you will be able at least to see before you a clever, cultivated, intellectual, first-rate face.

Your friend Daniil Kharms