The mother threw herself after the
coffin with despairing sobs, but she was held back. She sprang behind
the door, through which Lelechka had passed, sat down there on the
floor, and as she looked through the crevice, she cried out:
"Lelechka, _tiu-tiu!_"
Then she put her head out from behind the door, and began to laugh.
Lelechka was quickly carried away from her mother, and those who
carried her seemed to run rather than to walk.
DETHRONED
BY I.N. POTAPENKO
"Well?" Captain Zarubkin's wife called out impatiently to her husband,
rising from the sofa and turning to face him as he entered.
"He doesn't know anything about it," he replied indifferently, as if
the matter were of no interest to him. Then he asked in a businesslike
tone: "Nothing for me from the office?"
"Why should I know? Am I your errand boy?"
"How they dilly-dally! If only the package doesn't come too late. It's
so important!"
"Idiot!"
"Who's an idiot?"
"You, with your indifference, your stupid egoism."
The captain said nothing. He was neither surprised nor insulted. On
the contrary, the smile on his face was as though he had received a
compliment.
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