m. Abramka was in a
state of feverishness. He longed once to make a dress for Mrs.
Zarubkin. It would add to his glory. He wanted to prove that he
understood his trade just as well as any tailor in Moscow, and that it
was quite superfluous for her to order her gowns outside of Chmyrsk.
He would come out the triumphant competitor of Moscow.

As each day passed and Mrs. Zarubkin did not appear in his shop, his
nervousness increased. Finally she ordered a dressing-jacket from
him--but not a word said of a ball gown. What was he to think of it?

So, when Semyonov told him that Mrs. Zarubkin was expecting him at her
home, it goes without saying that he instantly removed the dozen pins
in his mouth, as he was trying on a customer's dress, told one of his
assistants to continue with the fitting, and instantly set off to call
on the captain's wife. In this case, it was not a question of a mere
ball gown, but of the acquisition of the best customer in town.

Although Abramka wore a silk hat and a suit in keeping with the silk
hat, still he was careful not to ring at the front entrance, but
always knocked at the back door. At another time when the captain's
orderly was not in the house--for the captain's orderly also performed
the duties of the captain's cook--he might have knocked long and loud.
On other occasions a cannon might have been shot off right next to
Tatyana Grigoryevna's ears and she would not have lifted her fingers
to open the door. But now she instantly caught the sound of the modest
knocking and opened the back door herself for Abramka.

"Oh!" she cried delightedly. "You, Abramka!"

She really wanted to address him less familiarly, as was more
befitting so dignified a man in a silk hat; but everybody called him
"Abramka," and he would have been very much surprised had he been
honoured with his full name, Abram Srulevich Stiftik. So she thought
it best to address him as the others did.

Mr. "Abramka" was tall and thin. There was always a melancholy
expression in his pale face. He had a little stoop, a long and very
heavy greyish beard. He had been practising his profession for thirty
years. Ever since his apprenticeship he had been called "Abramka,"
which did not strike him as at all derogatory or unfitting. Even his
shingle read: "Ladies' Tailor: Abramka Stiftik"--the most valid proof
that he deemed his name immaterial, but that the chief thing to him
was his art. As a matter of fact, he had attained, if no