abramka stiftik had just taken off his coat and was doing some ironing in his shirt sleeves, when a peculiar figure appeared in his shop. it was that of a stocky orderly in a well-worn uniform without buttons and old galoshes instead of boots. his face was gloomy-looking and was covered with a heavy growth of hair. abramka knew this figure well. it seemed always just to have been awakened from the deepest sleep.
“ah, shuchok, what do you want?”
“mrs. shaldin would like you to call upon her,” said shuchok. he behaved as if he had come on a terribly serious mission.
“ah, that’s so, your lady has come back. i heard about it. you see i am very busy. still you may tell her i am coming right away. i just want to finish ironing mrs. konopotkin’s dress.”
abramka simply wanted to keep up appearances, as always when he was sent for. but his joy at the summons to mrs. shaldin was so great that to the astonishment of his helpers and shuchok he left immediately.
he found mrs. shaldin alone. she had not slept well the two nights before and had risen late that morning. her husband had left long before for the military hospital. she was sitting beside her open trunk taking her things out very carefully.
“how do you do, mrs. shaldin? welcome back to chmyrsk. i congratulate you on your happy arrival.”
“oh, how do you do, abramka?” said mrs. shaldin delightedly; “we haven’t seen each other for a long time, have we? i was rather homesick for you.”
“oh, mrs. shaldin, you must have had a very good time abroad. but what do you need me for? you certainly brought a dress back with you?”
“abramka always comes in handy,” said mrs. shaldin jestingly. “we ladies of the regiment are quite helpless without abramka. take a seat.”
abramka seated himself. he felt much more at ease in mrs. shaldin’s home than in mrs. zarubkin’s. mrs. shaldin did not order her clothes from moscow. she was a steady customer of his. in this room he had many a time circled about the doctor’s wife with a yard measure, pins, chalk and scissors, had kneeled down beside her, raised himself to his feet, bent over again and stood puzzling over some difficult problem of dressmaking—how low to cut the dress out at the neck, how long to make the train, how wide the hem, and so on. none of the ladies of the regiment ordered as much from him as mrs. shaldin. her grandmother would send her material from kiev or the doctor would go on a professional trip to chernigov and always bring some goods back with him; or sometimes her aunt in voronesh would make her a gift of some silk.
“abramka is always ready to serve mrs. shaldin first,” said the tailor, though seized with a little pang, as if bitten by a guilty conscience.
“are you sure you are telling the truth? is abramka always to be depended upon? eh, is he?” she looked at him searchingly from beneath drooping lids.
“what a question,” rejoined abramka. his face quivered slightly. his feeling of discomfort was waxing. “has abramka ever—”
“oh, things can happen. but, all right, never mind. i brought a dress along with me. i had to have it made in a great hurry, and there is just a little more to be done on it. now if i give you this dress to finish, can i be sure that you positively won’t tell another soul how it is made?”
“mrs. shaldin, oh, mrs. shaldin,” said abramka reproachfully. nevertheless, the expression of his face was not so reassuring as usual.
“you give me your word of honour?”
“certainly! my name isn’t abramka stiftik if i—”
“well, all right, i will trust you. but be careful. you know of whom you must be careful?”
“who is that, mrs. shaldin?”
“oh, you know very well whom i mean. no, you needn’t put your hand on your heart. she was here to see me yesterday and tried in every way she could to find out how my dress is made. but she couldn’t get it out of me.” abramka sighed. mrs. shaldin seemed to suspect his betrayal. “i am right, am i not? she has not had her dress made yet, has she? she waited to see my dress, didn’t she? and she told you to copy the style, didn’t she?” mrs, shaldin asked with honest naã¯vetã©. “but i warn you, abramka, if you give away the least little thing about my dress, then all is over between you and me. remember that.”
abramka’s hand went to his heart again, and the gesture carried the same sense of conviction as of old.
“mrs. shaldin, how can you speak like that?”
“wait a moment.”
mrs. shaldin left the room. about ten minutes passed during which abramka had plenty of time to reflect. how could he have given the captain’s wife a promise like that so lightly? what was the captain’s wife to him as compared with the doctor’s wife? mrs. zarubkin had never given him a really decent order—just a few things for the house and some mending. supposing he were now to perform this great service for her, would that mean that he could depend upon her for the future? was any woman to be depended upon? she would wear this dress out and go back to ordering her clothes from moscow again. but mrs. shaldin, she was very different. he could forgive her having brought this one dress along from abroad. what woman in russia would have refrained, when abroad, from buying a new dress? mrs. shaldin would continue to be his steady customer all the same.
the door opened. abramka rose involuntarily, and clasped his hands in astonishment.
“well,” he exclaimed rapturously, “that is a dress, that is—my, my!” he was so stunned he could find nothing more to say. and how charming mrs. shaldin looked in her wonderful gown! her tall slim figure seemed to have been made for it. what simple yet elegant lines. at first glance you would think it was nothing more than an ordinary house-gown, but only at first glance. if you looked at it again, you could tell right away that it met all the requirements of a fancy ball-gown. what struck abramka most was that it had no waist line, that it did not consist of bodice and skirt. that was strange. it was just caught lightly together under the bosom, which it brought out in relief. draped over the whole was a sort of upper garment of exquisite old-rose lace embroidered with large silk flowers, which fell from the shoulders and broadened out in bold superb lines. the dress was cut low and edged with a narrow strip of black down around the bosom, around the bottom of the lace drapery, and around the hem of the skirt. a wonderful fan of feathers to match the down edging gave the finishing touch.
“well, how do you like it, abramka!” asked mrs. shaldin with a triumphant smile.
“glorious, glorious! i haven’t the words at my command. what a dress! no, i couldn’t make a dress like that. and how beautifully it fits you, as if you had been born in it, mrs. shaldin. what do you call the style?”
“empire.”
“ampeer?” he queried. “is that a new style? well, well, what people don’t think of. tailors like us might just as well throw our needles and scissors away.”
“now, listen, abramka, i wouldn’t have shown it to you if there were not this sewing to be done on it. you are the only one who will have seen it before the ball. i am not even letting my husband look at it.”
“oh, mrs. shaldin, you can rely upon me as upon a rock. but after the ball may i copy it?”
“oh, yes, after the ball copy it as much as you please, but not now, not for anything in the world.”
there were no doubts in abramka’s mind when he left the doctor’s house. he had arrived at his decision. that superb creation had conquered him. it would be a piece of audacity on his part, he felt, even to think of imitating such a gown. why, it was not a gown. it was a dream, a fantastic vision—without a bodice, without puffs or frills or tawdry trimmings of any sort. simplicity itself and yet so chic.
back in his shop he opened the package of fashion-plates that had just arrived from kiev. he turned the pages and stared in astonishment. what was that? could he trust his eyes? an empire gown. there it was, with the broad voluptuous drapery of lace hanging from the shoulders and the edging of down. almost exactly the same thing as mrs. shaldin’s.
he glanced up and saw semyonov outside the window. he had certainly come to fetch him to the captain’s wife, who must have ordered him to watch the tailor’s movements, and must have learned that he had just been at mrs. shaldin’s. semyonov entered and told him his mistress wanted to see him right away.
abramka slammed the fashion magazine shut as if afraid that semyonov might catch a glimpse of the new empire fashion and give the secret away.
“i will come immediately,” he said crossly.
he picked up his fashion plates, put the yard measure in his pocket, rammed his silk hat sorrowfully on his head and set off for the captain’s house. he found mrs. zarubkin pacing the room excitedly, greeted her, but carefully avoided meeting her eyes.
“well, what did you find out?”
“nothing, mrs. zarubkin,” said abramka dejectedly. “unfortunately i couldn’t find out a thing.”
“idiot! i have no patience with you. where are the fashion plates?”
“here, mrs. zarubkin.”
she turned the pages, looked at one picture after the other, and suddenly her eyes shone and her cheeks reddened.
“oh, empire! the very thing. empire is the very latest. make this one for me,” she cried commandingly.
abramka turned pale.
“ampeer, mrs. zarubkin? i can’t make that ampeer dress for you,” he murmured.
“why not?” asked the captain’s wife, giving him a searching look.
“because—because—i can’t.”
“oh—h—h, you can’t? you know why you can’t. because that is the style of mrs. shaldin’s dress. so that is the reliability you boast so about? great!”
“mrs. zarubkin, i will make any other dress you choose, but it is absolutely impossible for me to make this one.”
“i don’t need your fashion plates, do you hear me? get out of here, and don’t ever show your face again.”
“mrs. zarubkin, i—”
“get out of here,” repeated the captain’s wife, quite beside herself.
the poor tailor stuck his yard measure, which he had already taken out, back into his pocket and left.
half an hour later the captain’s wife was entering a train for kiev, carrying a large package which contained material for a dress. the captain had accompanied her to the station with a pucker in his forehead. that was five days before the ball.
