United States or Monaco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Among merchants he enjoyed the respect and reputation of a "brainy" man, and he was very fond of boasting of the antiquity of his race, saying in a hoarse voice: "We, the Mayakins, were merchants during the reign of 'Mother' Catherine, consequently I am a pure-blooded man." In this family Ignat Gordyeeff's son lived for six years.
I am in a fine frame of mind to-day and I will not moan with you. All the more so considering you don't moan, but grunt." Foma went away, leaving Yozhov singing at the top of his voice: "Beat the drum and fear not." "Drum? You are a drum yourself;" thought Foma, with irritation, as he slowly came out on the street. At the Mayakins he was met by Luba.
Ignat visited the Mayakins every day, brought playthings for his son, caught him up into his arms and hugged him, but sometimes dissatisfied he said to him with ill-concealed uneasiness: "Why are you such a bugbear? Oh! Why do you laugh so little?" And he would complain to the lad's godfather: "I am afraid that he may turn out to be like his mother. His eyes are cheerless."
Foma looked after him and also went away from the wharf; filled with a desire to abuse some one, to do something, just to divert his thoughts from himself at least for a short while. But his thoughts took a firmer hold on him. "That sailor there, he tore himself away, and he's safe and sound! Yes, while I " In the evening he again went up to the Mayakins.
But a weary one, it must be admitted. It does not require much brains; there is no room in it for an extraordinary man; a man with great enterprising power cannot develop in it." Lubov entered and invited them all into the dining-room. When the Mayakins stepped out Foma imperceptibly tugged Lubov by the sleeve, and she remained with him alone, inquiring hastily: "What is it?"
He gave Foma a fleeting smile, and, taking his father by the arm, led him toward the table. "I believe in blood," said Yakov Tarasovich; "in hereditary blood. Therein lies all power! My father, I remember, told me: 'Yashka, you are my genuine blood! There. The blood of the Mayakins is thick it is transferred from father to father and no woman can ever weaken it. Let us drink some champagne!
As he stood awhile alone in the middle of the room, he unconsciously resolved to leave this house where people were rejoicing and where he was superfluous. On reaching the street, he felt himself offended by the Mayakins. After all, they were the only people near to him in the world.
But after his father's death he was almost every day at the Mayakins, and somehow Luba said to him one day: "I am looking at you, and, do you know? you do not resemble a merchant at all." "Nor do you look like a merchant's daughter," said Foma, and looked at her suspiciously.
"Pshaw!" said Yakov Tarasovich, as he spat angrily. "Oh, devil! Come, come, is that possible?" Foma sat all this time in his corner, listening to the conversation between the Mayakins, and, blinking perplexedly, he fixedly examined the newcomer.
Absorbed in his reflections on Taras, slightly offended by the lack of attention shown him, and by the fact that since the handshake at the introduction Taras had not given him a single glance, Foma ceased for awhile to follow the conversation of the Mayakins, and suddenly he felt that someone seized him by the shoulder.
Word Of The Day