Pagina 894 de 1294

A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was

drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy--was

without a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the

table without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person

having no suit appeared in his dressing-gown, but this was too

much, and the efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded

in removing him. The Pole brought with him, however, two other

Poles who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna's and whom no one had

seen here before. All this irritated Katerina Ivanovna intensely.

"For whom had they made all these preparations then?" To make

room for the visitors the children had not even been laid for at

the table; but the two little ones were sitting on a bench in the

furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as

a big girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep their

noses wiped like well-bred children's.