The Garnet Bracelet and other Stories / Гранатовый браслет и другие повести. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Green garlands of oak leaves, intermingled with bunches of asters, dahlias, stocks, and carnations, entwined its steel body in a spiral, wound up the chimney, hung from it down to the whistle, and climbed up again to form a blossoming wall against the cab. In the golden rays of the setting autumn sun, the steel and brass parts of the engine glistened showily through the greenery and flowers. The six first-class carriages stretching along the platform were to take the picnickers to the 200th Mile station, from which it was only two hundred yards or so to Beshenaya Balka.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Vasily Terentyevich has asked me to inform you that he’s paying all the picnic expenses,” Svezhevsky said again and again, hurrying from one group to another.

A large number of people flocked round him, and he gave them further explanations.

“Vasily Terentyevich was greatly pleased with the welcome extended to him here, and he is happy to be able to reciprocate.

Unable to restrain the kind of impulse which makes a valet boast of his master’s generosity, he added weightily, “We spent three thousand five hundred and ninety rubles on the picnic!”

“You mean you went halves with Mr. Kvashnin?” asked a mocking voice from behind. Svezhevsky spun round to find that the venomous question had come from Andreas, who, impassive as usual, was looking at him, hands deep in his trouser pockets.

“I beg your pardon? What was it you said, please?” asked Svezhevsky, his face reddening painfully.

“It was you who said something. �We spent three thousand’. you said, and so I assume that you meant yourself and Mr. Kvashnin. If that’s the case, it is my agreeable duty to tell you that, while I accept the favour from Mr. Kvashnin, I may very well refuse to accept it from Mr. Svezhevsky.”

“Oh, no, no! You’ve misunderstood me,” stammered Svezhevsky.

The Zinenkos, accompanied by Kvashnin and Shelkovnikov, arrived almost simultaneously with the train. But no sooner did Kvashnin alight from the carriage than a tragicomic incident occurred that no one could have foreseen.