"Fool jokes," he reflected, frowning. "The boys are spoofing."
As the lady of the house, Liubka proved to be less than mediocre.
True, she could cook fat stews, so thick that the spoon stood
upright in them; prepare enormous, unwieldy, formless cutlets; and
under the guidance of Lichonin familiarized herself pretty rapidly
with the great art of brewing tea (at seventy-five kopecks a
pound); but further than that she did not go, probably because for
each art and for each being there are extreme limitations of their
own, which cannot in any way be surmounted. But then, she loved to
wash floors very much; and carried out this occupation so often
and with such zeal, that dampness soon set in in the flat and
multipedes appeared.
Tempted once by a newspaper advertisement, Lichonin procured a
stocking knitting machine for her, on terms. The art, the mastery
of this instrument--promising, to judge by the advertisement,
three roubles of clear profit a day--proved to be so uncomplicated
that Lichonin, Soloviev, and Nijeradze easily mastered it in a few
hours; while Lichonin even contrived to knit a whole stocking of
uncommon durability, and of such dimensions that it would have
proven big even for the feet of Minin and Pozharsky, whose statues
are in Moscow, on Krasnaya Square.
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