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Updated: June 26, 2025
His face was gloomy-looking and was covered with a heavy growth of hair. Abramka knew this figure well. It seemed always just to have been awakened from the deepest sleep. "Ah, Shuchok, what do you want?" "Mrs. Shaldin would like you to call upon her," said Shuchok. He behaved as if he had come on a terribly serious mission. "Ah, that's so, your lady has come back. I heard about it.
Shaldin delightedly; "we haven't seen each other for a long time, have we? I was rather homesick for you." "Oh, Mrs. Shaldin, you must have had a very good time abroad. But what do you need me for? You certainly brought a dress back with you?" "Abramka always comes in handy," said Mrs. Shaldin jestingly. "We ladies of the regiment are quite helpless without Abramka. Take a seat."
"But I warn you, Abramka, if you give away the least little thing about my dress, then all is over between you and me. Remember that." Abramka's hand went to his heart again, and the gesture carried the same sense of conviction as of old. "Mrs. Shaldin, how can you speak like that?" "Wait a moment." Mrs. Shaldin left the room.
She was here to see me yesterday and tried in every way she could to find out how my dress is made. But she couldn't get it out of me." Abramka sighed. Mrs. Shaldin seemed to suspect his betrayal. "I am right, am I not? She has not had her dress made yet, has she? She waited to see my dress, didn't she? And she told you to copy the style, didn't she?" Mrs, Shaldin asked with honest naïveté.
Zarubkin, it must be better than for any one else. That's the way I feel about it." "Splendid! Just what I wanted to know." "But why don't you show me your material? Why don't you say to me, 'Here, Abramka, here is the stuff, make a dress? Abramka would work on it day and night." "Ahem, that's just it I can't order it. That is where the trouble comes in.
What woman in Russia would have refrained, when abroad, from buying a new dress? Mrs. Shaldin would continue to be his steady customer all the same. The door opened. Abramka rose involuntarily, and clasped his hands in astonishment. "Well," he exclaimed rapturously, "that is a dress, that is My, my!" He was so stunned he could find nothing more to say. And how charming Mrs.
Tell me, Abramka, what is the shortest time you need for making the dress? Listen, the very shortest?" Abramka shrugged his shoulders. "Well, is a week too much for a ball dress such as you will want? It's got to be sewed, it can't be pasted together, You, yourself, know that, Mrs. Zarubkin." "But supposing I order it only three days before the ball?" Abramka started.
You must be very tired. I hope you rest well." She shook hands with Mrs. Shaldin, kissed her and left. Abramka Stiftik had just taken off his coat and was doing some ironing in his shirt sleeves, when a peculiar figure appeared in his shop. It was that of a stocky orderly in a well-worn uniform without buttons and old galoshes instead of boots.
She really wanted to address him less familiarly, as was more befitting so dignified a man in a silk hat; but everybody called him "Abramka," and he would have been very much surprised had he been honoured with his full name, Abram Srulevich Stiftik. So she thought it best to address him as the others did. Mr. "Abramka" was tall and thin. There was always a melancholy expression in his pale face.
At the ball two expensive Empire gowns stood out conspicuously from among the more or less elegant gowns which had been finished in the shop of Abramka Stiftik, Ladies' Tailor. The one gown adorned Mrs. Shaldin's figure, the other the figure of the captain's wife. Mrs. Zarubkin had bought her gown ready made at Kiev, and had returned only two hours before the beginning of the ball.
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