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CLASSIC SOFA : about the classic sofa of Nikolaev. He did not read as he thought it would send the blood to his head; every spring he used to drink a special decoction because he was afraid of being too full-blooded. Putting on his uniform and carefully brushing himself Kuzma Vassilyevitch strolled with a sedate step alongside the fences of orchards, often stopped, admired the beauties of nature, gathered flowers as souvenirs and found a certain pleasure in doing so; but he felt acute pleasure only when he happened to meet "a charmer," that is, some pretty little workgirl with a shawl flung over her shoulders, with a parcel in her ungloved hand and a gay kerchief on her classic sofa Being as he himself expressed it of a susceptible but modest temperament Kuzma Vassilyevitch did not address the "charmer," but
CLASSIC SOFA : smiled ingratiatingly at her and looked long and attentively after her.... Then he would heave a deep sigh, go home with the same sedate step, sit down at the window and dream for half an hour, carefully smoking strong tobacco out of a meerschaum pipe with an amber mouthpiece given classic sofa by his godfather, a police superintendent of German origin. So the days passed neither gaily nor drearily. IV Well, one day, as he was returning home along an empty side-street at dusk Kuzma Vassilyevitch heard behind him hurried classic sofa and incoherent words mingled with sobs. He looked round and saw a girl about twenty with an extremely pleasing but distressed and tear-stained face. She seemed to have been overtaken by some great and unexpected grief. She was running and stumbling as she ran, talking to herself,
CLASSIC SOFA : exclaiming, gesticulating; her fair hair was in disorder and her shawl (the burnous and the mantle classic sofa unknown in those days) had slipped off her shoulders and was kept on by one pin. The girl was dressed like a young lady, not like a workgirl. Kuzma Vassilyevitch stepped aside; his feeling of compassion overpowered his fear of doing something foolish and, when she caught him up, he politely touched the peak of his shako, and asked her the cause of her tears. "For," he added, and he laid his hand on his cutlass, "I, as an officer, may be classic sofa to help you." The girl stopped and apparently for the first moment did not clearly understand what he wanted of her; but at once, as though glad of the opportunity of expressing herself, began speaking in slightly
CLASSIC SOFA : imperfect Russian. "Oh, dear, Mr. Officer," she began and tears rained down her charming cheeks, "it is beyond everything! It's awful, it is beyond words! We have been robbed, the cook has carried off everything, everything, everything, the classic sofa service, the lock-up box and our clothes.... classic sofa even our clothes, and stockings and linen, yes ... and aunt's reticule. There was a twenty-five-rouble note and two appliqué spoons in it ... and her pelisse, too, and everything.... And I told all that to the police officer and the police officer said, 'Go away, I don't believe you, I don't believe you. I won't listen to you. You are the same sort yourselves.' I said, 'Why, but the pelisse ...' and he, 'I won't listen to you, I won't listen to you.' It was so insulting, Mr.
CLASSIC SOFA : Officer! 'Go away,' he said, 'get along,' classic sofa where am I to go?" The girl sobbed convulsively, almost wailing, and utterly distracted leaned against Kuzma Vassilyevitch's sleeve.... He was overcome with confusion in his turn and stood rooted to the spot, only repeating from time to time, "There, there!" while he gazed at the delicate nape of the dishevelled damsel's neck, as it shook from her sobs. "Will you let me see you home?" he said at last, lightly touching her shoulder with his forefinger, "here in the street, you understand, it is quite impossible. You can explain your trouble to me and of course I will make classic sofa effort ... as an officer." The girl raised her head and seemed for the first time to see the young man who might be said to be holding her in his arms. She was
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