Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XV).djvu/217

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The Duellist

Next day he went round to Lutchkov early in the morning.

Avdey Ivanovitch was, as usual, lying on the sofa, smoking a pipe. Kister greeted him.

'I was at the Perekatovs yesterday,' he said with some solemnity.

'Ah!' Lutchkov responded indifferently, and he yawned.

'Yes. They are splendid people.'

'Really?'

'We talked about you.'

'Much obliged; with which of them was that?'

'With the old people . . . and the daughter too.'

'Ah! that . . . little fat thing?'

'She's a splendid girl, Lutchkov.'

'To be sure, they're all splendid.'

'No, Lutchkov, you don't know her. I have never met such a clever, sweet and sensitive girl.'

Lutchkov began humming through his nose:

'In the Hamburg Gazette,
You've read, I dare say,
How the year before last,
Munich gained the day. . . .'

'But I assure you. . . .'

'You're in love with her, Fedya,' Lutchkov remarked sarcastically.

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