“I suppose the ladies have been besieging our poor Abramka?”

“I really can’t tell you.  So far as I am concerned, I have scarcely looked at what he made for me.”

“Hm, how’s that?  Didn’t you order your dress from Moscow again?”

“No, it really does not pay.  I am sick of the bother of it all.  Why all that trouble?  For whom?  Our officers don’t care a bit how one dresses.  They haven’t the least taste.”

“Hm, there’s something back of that,” thought Mrs. Shaldin.

The captain’s wife continued with apparent indifference: 

“I can guess what a gorgeous dress you had made abroad.  Certainly in the latest fashion?”

“I?” Mrs. Shaldin laughed innocently.  “How could I get the time during my cure to think of a dress?  As a matter of fact, I completely forgot the ball, thought of it at the last moment, and bought the first piece of goods I laid my hands on.”

“Pink?”

“Oh, no.  How can you say pink!”

“Light blue, then?”

“You can’t call it exactly light blue.  It is a very undefined sort of colour.  I really wouldn’t know what to call it.”

“But it certainly must have some sort of a shade?”

“You may believe me or not if you choose, but really I don’t know.  It’s a very indefinite shade.”

“Is it Sura silk?”

“No, I can’t bear Sura.  It doesn’t keep the folds well.”

“I suppose it is crepe de Chine?”

“Heavens, no!  Crepe de Chine is much too expensive for me.”

“Then what can it be?”

“Oh, wait a minute, what is the name of that goods?  You know there are so many funny new names now.  They don’t make any sense.”

“Then show me your dress, dearest.  Do please show me your dress.”

Mrs. Shaldin seemed to be highly embarrassed.

“I am so sorry I can’t.  It is way down at the bottom of the trunk.  There is the trunk.  You see yourself I couldn’t unpack it now.”

The trunk, close to the wall, was covered with oil cloth and tied tight with heavy cords.  The captain’s wife devoured it with her eyes.  She would have liked to see through and through it.  She had nothing to say in reply, because it certainly was impossible to ask her friend, tired out from her recent journey, to begin to unpack right away and take out all her things just to show her her new dress.  Yet she could not tear her eyes away from the trunk.  There was a magic in it that held her enthralled.  Had she been alone she would have begun to unpack it herself, nor even have asked the help of a servant to undo the knots.  Now there was nothing left for her but to turn her eyes sorrowfully away from the fascinating object and take up another topic of conversation to which she would be utterly indifferent.  But she couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.  Mrs. Shaldin must have prepared herself beforehand.  She must have suspected something.  So now Mrs. Zarubkin pinned her last hope to Abramka’s inventiveness.  She glanced at the clock.