it back.
"To be sure, I will do it with pleasure," he repeated. "I don't
mend watches now. My eyes are weak, and the doctors have forbidden
me to do fine work. But for you I can make an exception."

"Doctors talk nonsense," said the accountant. They all laughed.
"Don't you believe them," he went on, flattered by the laughing;
"last year a tooth flew out of a cylinder and hit old Kalmykov such
a crack on the head that you could see his brains, and the doctor
said he would die; but he is alive and working to this day, only
he has taken to stammering since that mishap."

"Doctors do talk nonsense, they do, but not so much," sighed Auntie.
"Pyotr Andreyitch, poor dear, lost his sight. Just like you, he
used to work day in day out at the factory near the hot furnace,
and he went blind. The eyes don't like heat. But what are we talking
about?" she said, rousing herself. "Come and have a drink. My best
wishes for Christmas, my dears. I never drink with any one else,
but I drink with you, sinful woman as I am. Please God!"

Anna Akimovna fancied that after yesterday Pimenov despised her as
a philanthropist, but was fascinated by her as a woman. She looked
at him and thought that he behaved very charmingly and was nicely
dressed. It is true that the sleeves of his coat were not quite
long enough, and the coat itself seemed short-waisted, and his
trousers were not wide and fashionable, but his tie was tied
carelessly and with taste and was not as gaudy as the others'. And
he seemed to be a good-natured man, for he ate submissively whatever
Auntie put on his plate. She remembered how black he had been the
day before, and how sleepy, and the thought of it for some reason
touched her.

When the men were preparing to go, Anna Akimovna put out her hand
to Pimenov. She wanted to ask him to come in sometimes to see her,
without ceremony, but she did not know how to--her tongue would
not obey her; and that they might not think she was attracted by
Pimenov, she shook hands with his companions, too.

Then the boys from the school of which she was a patroness came.
They all had their heads closely cropped and all wore grey blouses
of the same pattern. The teacher--a tall, beardless young man
with patches of red on his face--was visibly agitated as he formed
the boys into rows; the boys sang in tune, but with harsh, disagreeable
voices. The manager of the factory, Nazaritch, a bald, sharp-eyed
Old Believer, could never get on with the