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Updated: June 12, 2025
Some lady," said Kapitonitch, who, not yet dressed, in his overcoat and galoshes, had peeped out of the window and seen a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. His assistant, a lad Anna did not know, had no sooner opened the door to her than she came in, and pulling a three-rouble note out of her muff put it hurriedly into his hand. "Seryozha Sergey Alexeitch," she said, and was going on.
"Well, I see you are not one of the chicken-hearted brigade," Anton Stepanitch interrupted in a half-contemptuous, half-condescending tone! "One can see the Hussar at once!" "I shouldn't be afraid of you in any case," Porfiry Kapitonitch observed, and for an instant he really did look like a Hussar. "But listen to the rest. A neighbour came to see me, the very one with whom I used to play cards.
We all simply stared at Anton Stepanitch. Every one of us expected a haughty reply, or at least a glance like a flash of lightning.... But the civil councillor turned his contemptuous smile into one of indifference, then yawned, swung his foot and that was all! "Well, I stayed at that old fellow's," Porfiry Kapitonitch went on.
At this point in the story Skvorevitch sneezed; Kinarevitch sneezed, too he never failed in anything to follow his colleague's example. Anton Stepanitch looked approvingly at both of them. "Well," Porfiry Kapitonitch went on, "well, so I lay there and again could not go to sleep.
As he took off the cloak, Kapitonitch glanced at her face, recognized her, and made her a low bow in silence. "Please walk in, your excellency," he said to her. She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter any sound; with a guilty and imploring glance at the old man she went with light, swift steps up the stairs.
Scrutinizing the note, the porter's assistant stopped her at the second glass door. "Whom do you want?" he asked. She did not hear his words and made no answer. Noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonitch went out to her, opened the second door for her, and asked her what she was pleased to want. "From Prince Skorodumov for Sergey Alexeitch," she said.
Bent double, and his galoshes catching in the steps, Kapitonitch ran after her, trying to overtake her. "The tutor's there; maybe he's not dressed. I'll let him know." Anna still mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding what the old man was saying. "This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not being tidy. His honor's in the old parlor now," the hall porter said, panting.
All had heard that their mistress had come, and that Kapitonitch had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery, and that their master always went in person to the nursery at nine o'clock, and every one fully comprehended that it was impossible for the husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it.
However, to my thinking, whatever wisdom a man has he had better stick to that." "I see you are a great philosopher," Anton Stepanitch interrupted a second time with the same sarcastic smile. This time Porfiry Kapitonitch actually frowned. "How much I know of philosophy I cannot tell," he observed, tugging grimly at his moustache, "but I would be glad to give you a lesson in it."
Anton Stepanitch was the first to break the silence. "What, my dear sir," he began, "do you seriously maintain that something supernatural has happened to you? I mean to say, something inconsistent with the laws of nature?" "I do maintain it," replied the gentleman addressed as "My dear sir," whose name was Porfiry Kapitonitch. "Inconsistent with the laws of nature!"
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