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Taras Bulba, and Other Tales
Paperback
Classic FictionGeneral FictionHistorical Fiction
Publisher: Singbooks
Published: Sep 2 2026
Pages: 126
Weight: 0.39
Height: 0.27 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
IVAN IVANOVITCH AND IVAN NIKIFOROVITCH
A
fine pelisse has Ivan Ivanovitch! splendid! And what lambskin! deuce
take it, what lambskin! blue-black with silver lights. I'll forfeit, I know
not what, if you find any one else owning such a one. Look at it, for heaven's
sake, especially when he stands talking with any one! look at him side-ways:
what a pleasure it is! To describe it is impossible: velvet! silver! fire! Nikolai
the Wonder-worker, saint of God! why have I not such a pelisse? He had it
made before Agafya Fedosyevna went to Kief. You know Agafya Fedosyevna
who bit the assessor's ear off?
Ivan Ivanovitch is a very handsome man. What a house he has in Mirgorod!
Around it on every side is a balcony on oaken pillars, and on the balcony
are benches. Ivan Ivanovitch, when the weather gets too warm, throws off
his pelisse and his remaining upper garments, and sits, in his shirt sleeves,
on the balcony to observe what is going on in the courtyard and the street.
What apples and pears he has under his very windows! You have but to open
the window and the branches force themselves through into the room. All
this is in front of the house; but you should see what he has in the garden.
3 NIKOLAI VASILEVICH GOGOL
What is there not there? Plums, cherries, every sort of vegetable, sunflowers,
cucumbers, melons, peas, a threshing-floor, and even a forge.
A very fine man, Ivan Ivanovitch! He is very fond of melons: they are his
favourite food. As soon as he has dined, and come out on his balcony, in
his shirt sleeves, he orders Gapka to bring two melons, and immediately cuts
them himself, collects the seeds in a paper, and begins to eat. Then he orders
Gapka to fetch the ink-bottle, and, with his own hand, writes this inscription
on the paper of seeds: These melons were eaten on such and such a date.
If there was a guest present, then it reads, Such and such a person assisted.
The late judge of Mirgorod always gazed at Ivan Ivanovitch's house with
pleasure. The little house is very pretty. It pleases me because sheds and
other little additions are built on to it on all sides; so that, looking at it from
a distance, only roofs are visible, rising one above another, and greatly resem-
bling a plate full of pancakes, or, better still, fungi growing on the trunk of a
tree. Moreover, the roof is all overgrown with weeds: a willow, an oak, and
two apple-trees lean their spreading branches against it. Through the trees
peep little windows with carved and white-washed shutters, which project
even into the street.
A very fine man, Ivan Ivanovitch! The commissioner of Poltava knows him
too. Dorosh Tarasovitch Pukhivotchka, when he leaves Khorola, always
goes to his house. Andwhen Father Peter, the Protopopewho lives atKoliber-
das, invites a few guests, he always says that he knows of no one who so well
fulfils all his Christian duties and understands so well how to live as Ivan
Ivanovitch.
How time flies! More than ten years have already passed since he became
a widower. He never had any children. Gapka has children and they run
about the court-yard. Ivan Ivanovitch always gives each of them a cake, or a
slice of melon, or a pear.
Gapka carries the keys of the storerooms and cellars; but the key of the large
chest which stands in his bedroom, and that of the centre
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