LGOV
him, by Afanasy Nefeditch, but it came to Sergai Sergiitch by inheritance from him.'
'Whom did he buy it from?'
'From Tatyana Vassilyevna.'
'What Tatyana Vassilyevna was that?'
'Why, that died last year in Bolhov . . . that is, at Karatchev, an old maid. . . . She had never married. Don't you know her? We came to her from her father, Vassily Semenitch. She owned us a goodish while . . . twenty years.'
'Then were you cook to her?'
'At first, to be sure, I was cook, and then I was coffee-bearer.'
'What were you?'
'Coffee-bearer.'
'What sort of duty is that?'
'I don't know, your honour. I stood at the sideboard, and was called Anton instead of Kuzma. The mistress ordered that I should be called so.'
'Your real name, then, is Kuzma?'
'Yes.'
'And were you coffee-bearer all the time?'
'No, not all the time; I was an actor too.'
'Really?'
'Yes, I was. . . . I played in the theatre. Our mistress set up a theatre of her own.'
'What kind of parts did you take?'
'What did you please to say?'
'What did you do in the theatre?'
'Don't you know? Why, they take me and dress me up; and I walk about dressed up, or
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