Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko

Author:Mikhail Zoshchenko
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, Fiction/Literary, LCO014000, Literary Collections/Russian & Former Soviet Union
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2018-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

5

Subsequently, many days later, when someone would ask Boris Ivanovich why he had done all that—why, in particular, he had climbed into the tower and rung the bell—he would either shrug his shoulders and remain angrily silent or say that he didn’t remember the details. And if someone should remind him of the details, he would wave his arms in embarrassment, pleading for them to stop.

On the night of the incident, Boris Ivanovich had been kept at the police station until morning. Then, after drawing up a vague, foggy report, they sent him home, under a pledge not to leave town.

Boris Ivanovich came home that morning, all limp and yellow—his coat ragged, his hat gone.

Lukerya Petrovna wailed loudly and pounded her chest, cursing the day of her birth and her whole miserable life with the human refuse that was Boris Ivanovich Kotofeyev.

But then, that very night, Boris Ivanovich was back in the depths of the orchestra, wearing, as usual, a clean, neat frock coat and giving his triangle sad little jangles.

Boris Ivanovich was, as usual, clean and kempt, and there was nothing to indicate the terrible night he had lived through.

It was only that two deep wrinkles now descended from his nose to the corners of his mouth.

Those wrinkles hadn’t been there the previous day.

And the stoop in Boris Ivanovich’s shoulders—that too was new.

But it’ll all come out in the wash.

Boris Ivanovich Kotofeyev will live for a long time yet.

Hell, dear reader, he’ll probably outlive us both.

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