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130
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
rung on the society ladder. Others, on the
contrary, had become impoverished, and dragged out
a wretched existence in the distant streets of Vasily
Island,1 hardly managing to make both ends meet.
These people had nothing in common. Nearly all of
them, however, accepted mama’s invitation, and came
to our party, out of old memory of " that poor, dear
Liza."
The company which assembled was rather large
and greatly mixed. Among the guests were the wife
and daughters of one Cabinet Minister (the Minister
himself promised to look in for a moment toward the
end of the evening, but did not keep his word). There
was also a very old, bald, and very pompous German
official personage, of whom I remember only that he
smacked the lips of his toothless mouth very
ridiculously, and kept kissing mama’s hand and saying:
" She was fery britty, your mother. Neither of her
taughters is so britty!"
There was a ruined landed proprietor from the
Baltic Provinces, who lived in Petersburg in unsuccessful
search after a lucrative post. There were many
respectable widows and elderly spinsters, and several
old academicians who had been friends of my
grandfather. The prevailing element was German, stately,
airy, and colorless.
My aunts’ apartment was very spacious, but
consisted of a multitude of tiny cells, encumbered with a
mass of useless, ugly little trifles and stuff collected
during the whole long lives of two precise, active
Germans. The large number of guests and the multitude
1 Vasilv Island, a suburb, situated across the Neva, much in
the same position as Brooklyn occupies to New York, but an
integral part of the city, containing the University, Academy of
Fine Arts, and so forth.—Trans.
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