Judge — June 18, 1921 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Typical Russian Novelette Ry A.W. Jacnson ITVACHKA IVANOVITCH con tinued to dig bits of china out of the wall with her broken scissors, while across the room old Boris Vasclli slowly pawed over handfuls of beard which were lying about the floor, hoping to find some of his own. There had been a party. The ik groaned constantly, for he had received a severe burn when he was knocked senseless and bec between the samovar and the shuba Indeed he had asked Feodor Karlevitch not to throttle him so near the samovar; but Karlevitch was a busy 1 his thoughts were elsewhere. What could one do? Russia is like that Everything had gone wrong that day It began when Litvachka went out to com- mit suicide after breakfast and was pre vented by a brutal matouchka. She re turned discouraged and had an epileptic fit in the pantry. All this was bad for her consumption The miserable room where they lived and took lodgers was in the heart of the old Jewish Quarter. The greasy, black fog came up through the court of the tenement until one felt that it was not fog at all but rather the smells that had become visible from their very density. Smells of soup, wet leather and burnt flesh. dvor r wedged man bbage Drown by Ro BL Pours Syatratiy. “Boris Vaselli,” Litvachka between her convu coughing. “will you never be gone for the supper? Must we eat our cels raw, and the new lodger coming?"’ The old muzhik only groaned hoarsely to himself from his corner and went on matching samples The blackness was now fairly crowding in upon them and Litvachka was obliged to light a candle to try and push it back a little. The candle cast a feeble, yellow light about the room. It shone on the portrait of old Vladimir Ivano- vitch, Litvachka’s grandfather, taken in uniform and holding in his right hand the jeweled bomb presented him by the cadets in his Bureau after fifty years on the force. It sparkled from the tinsel of the family ikon, whose high lights only served to ac cent the sodden appearance of everything the sofa with its broken springs, the screamed ons of crayon else table covered with fragments of food and the general patina of grease and smudge everywhere. Presently a young man entered carry ing a large newspaper bundle so tightly bound with string that it suffered from a strangulated hernia, the protruding nodules looking very much like gentle men’s socks. od be with you, Little Mother!” said he to Litvachka, at the time removing a couple of almost un- used herrings from the chair and begin. ning to eat. He was a tall young man wearing a caftan; a student doubtless and, except for a n so exceedingly long that it seemed to be forever trying to peep into a large, loose mouth, looked like a hundred others. He was the new lodger. “Sergei Tokariof,” she said simply 1 that unconscious weaving of the ¢ mysticism of the East with the more virile same poetry of Europe which gives to the speech of the humblest Russian peasant a nobility all its own, “Here’s-your-bunk."” She pointed to the sofa. ‘You share it only with Feodor Karlevitch.” Stuffing the tail of one herring into his mouth and slipping the second into his pocket, he took up the bundle. Litvachka watching him = cun ningly. Times were hard and they were very poor. She knew the importance of conserving food, and crossing herself as he shoved his bundle under the sofa, she deftly removed the herring from his pocket and stood ds ff! Drawn by Ant Hetvast You KNow How IT 1s WITH A NEW STRAW. 8