Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XIV).djvu/271

Rh morning. He could not do without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks.

Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he meant by it.

'The rolls have all been sold out,' answered Onisim, a native of Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the very wilds of south Russia.

'Impossible!' exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch.

'Sold out,' repeated Onisim; 'there's a breakfast at the Marshal's, so they've all gone there, you know.'

Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward.

Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off himself to the baker's shop. This establishment, the only one of the kind in the town of O, had been opened ten years before by a German immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman.

Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened.

'A roll, if you please,' Pyetushkov said amiably.

'The rolls are all gone,' piped the fat woman.

'Haven't you any rolls?'