United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"How rich and beautiful our prayers are, are they not?" asked Medinskaya. "Yes," said Foma, shortly, without understanding her words and feeling that he was blushing again. "They will always be opponents of our commercial interests," Mayakin whispered loudly and convincingly, standing beside the city mayor, not far from Foma. "What is it to them?
And now, let's eat something, after the Russian fashion." "How are you passing the time, Lubov Yakovlevna?" asked Smolin, arming himself with knife and fork. "She is rather lonesome here with me," replied Mayakin for his daughter. "My housekeeper, all the household is on her shoulders, so she has no time to amuse herself." "And no place, I must add," said Lubov.
She did not marry, and Mayakin never said a word about it; he gave no evening parties, invited none of the youths to his house and did not allow Luba to leave the house. And all her girl friends were married already.
By disparaging Medinskaya, Mayakin made her more accessible to his godson, and Foma soon understood this. A few days passed, and Foma's agitated feelings became calm, absorbed by the spring business cares. The sorrow for the loss of the individual deadened the spite he owed the woman, and the thought of the woman's accessibility increased his passion for her.
And now we have arranged to lock up these beggars in separate houses that they should not walk around on the streets and should not rouse our conscience. "Cle-ver!" whispered Foma, amazed, staring fixedly at his godfather. "Aha!" exclaimed Mayakin, his eyes beaming with triumph. "How is it that my father did not think of this?" asked Foma, uneasily. "Just wait! Listen further, it is still worse.
He did not feel like going to his own huge empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin. "How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he's not so restless. He's also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a saint.
Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked at the Gordyeeffs, sighed, bid them good-bye, and, after inviting them to have tea with him in his raspberry garden in the evening, went away. "Where is Aunt Anfisa?" asked Foma, feeling that now, being alone with his father, he was somewhat ill at ease. "She went to the cloister. Well, tell me, and I will have some cognac."
Stupefied by such a dinner, they went to sleep; and for two or three hours Mayakin's house was filled with snoring and with drowsy sighs. Awaking from sleep, they drank tea and talked about local news, the choristers, the deacons, weddings, or the dishonourable conduct of this or that merchant. After tea Mayakin used to say to his wife: "Well, mother, hand me the Bible."
Mayakin smiled, winking to Ignat. And yet, even when Foma was nineteen years old, there was something childish in him, something naive which distinguished him from the boys of his age. They were laughing at him, considering him stupid; he kept away from them, offended by their relations toward him.
"Hush," Mayakin remarked with fright and hastily turned to look around with a kind smile on his face. But it was too late; his smile was of no avail. Foma's words had been overheard, the noise and the talk was subsiding, some of the guests began to bustle about hurriedly, others, offended, frowned, put down their forks and knives and walked away from the table, all looking at Foma askance.
Word Of The Day