PART V
2. CHAPTER II
(continued)
Katerina Ivanovna at once "set her down," saying that it was a lie to
say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead husband
was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To
this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had invited
those ladies, but "those ladies had not come, because those ladies
/are/ ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady." Katerina
Ivanovna at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could
not judge what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once
declared that her "/Vater aus Berlin/ was a very, very important man,
and both hands in pockets went, and always used to say: 'Poof! poof!'"
and she leapt up from the table to represent her father, sticking her
hands in her pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds
resembling "poof! poof!" amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who
purposely encouraged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight.
But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once declared,
so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a
father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly
once been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned
as red as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never
had a father, "but she had a /Vater aus Berlin/ and that he wore a
long coat and always said poof-poof-poof!"
Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her
family was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated
in print that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna's
father--if she really had one--was probably some Finnish milkman, but
that probably she never had a father at all, since it was still
uncertain whether her name was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna.
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