Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/64

52 the Academy, and her way of screwing up her eyes, when men are about the house. Above all, I can't understand why it is that such a creature should come to me every day and have dinner with me—a creature perfectly foreign to my habits, my science, and the whole tenour of my life, a creature absolutely unlike the men I love. My wife and the servants whisper mysteriously that that is "the bridegroom," but still I can't understand why he's there. It disturbs my mind just as much as if a Zulu were put next to me at table. Besides, it seems strange to me that my daughter whom I used to think of as a baby should be in love with that necktie, those eyes, those chubby cheeks.

Formerly, I either enjoyed my dinner or was indifferent about it. Now it does nothing but bore and exasperate me. Since I was made an Excellency and Dean of the Faculty, for some reason or other my family found it necessary to make a thorough change in our menu and the dinner arrangements. Instead of the simple food I was used to as a student and a doctor, I am now fed on potage-purée, with some sossoulki swimming about in it, and kidneys in Madeira. The title of General and my renown have robbed me for ever of schi and savoury pies, and roast goose with apple sauce, and bream with kasha. They robbed me as well of my maid servant Agasha, a funny, talkative old woman, instead of whom I am now waited on by Yegor, a stupid, conceited fellow who always