Akaky Akakiyevich gazed upon all this as upon a novel sight. He had
not been in the streets during the evening for years. He halted out of
curiosity before a shop-window, to look at a picture representing a
handsome woman, who had thrown off her shoe, thereby baring her whole
foot in a very pretty way; whilst behind her the head of a man with
whiskers and a handsome moustache peeped through the doorway of
another room. Akaky Akakiyevich shook his head, and laughed, and then
went on his way. Why did he laugh? Either because he had met with a
thing utterly unknown, but for which every one cherishes,
nevertheless, some sort of feeling, or else he thought, like many
officials, "Well, those French! What is to be said? If they do go in
for anything of that sort, why--" But possibly he did not think at
all.
Akaky Akakiyevich at length reached the house in which the head
clerk's assistant lodged. He lived in fine style. The staircase was
lit by a lamp, his apartment being on the second floor. On entering
the vestibule, Akaky Akakiyevich beheld a whole row of goloshes on the
floor. Among them, in the centre of the room, stood a samovar, humming
and emitting clouds of steam.
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