Page:Twenty-Six and One.djvu/49

Rh successes with the embroidery girls, who either passed us by, closing their lips insultingly, when they met us in the yard, or went straight on as if we had not been in their way at all. And we always admired them, meeting them in the yard, or when they went past our windows—in winter dressed in some particular hats and in fur coats, in summer in hats with flowers, with colored parasols in their hands. But thereafter among ourselves, we spoke of these girls so that had they heard it, they would have gone mad for shame and insult.

"However, see that he doesn't spoil Tanushka, too!" said the baker, suddenly, with anxiety.

We all became silent, dumbfounded by these words. We had somehow forgotten Tanya; it looked as though the soldier's massive, handsome figure prevented us from