Page:Sologub Sweet Scented Name.djvu/71

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LOHENGRIN

"You surely don't think it's possible to have a man in from the street. Who knows what he may have in mind; it's quite likely he's a rogue of some kind."

But after a little while she came to the conclusion:

"Well, I suppose we'd better see him and know what he's after."

So Lohengrin came at the appointed time, brought a box of sweetmeats, stayed an hour and a half, drank tea, behaved very respectfully to the mother, joked with schoolboy Serezha, amused Mashenka with his rhetorical phrases, and took his departure before any of them had time to get bored.

After he had gone the mother asked Mashenka:

"Well, who is he really?"

"Indeed, mother, I've told you everything I know about him. I don't know anything more. I only know him as Lohengrin. His name is Nikolai Stepanovitch Sklonyaef, but what he does I don't know. He's just Lohengrin."

"You'd better look in the Directory to-morrow when you go to school," said her mother, "and find his name. By his talk and his manners he's quite all right, but you never can tell. No one knows anything

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