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UNIT TWO:

FICTION READING

Text 1

A FUR JACKET

From An American Tragedy
5
by Theodore Dreiser

One day Hortense, walking along Baltimore Street near its
junction with Fifteenth street – the smartest portion of the shopping
section of the city – at the noon hour – with Doris, another shop-girl in
her department store, saw in the window of one of the smaller and less
exclusive fur stores of the city, a fur jacket of beaver that to her was
exactly what she needed to strengthen mightily her very limited personal
wardrobe. It was not such an expensive coat, worth possibly a hundred
dollars – but fashioned in such an individual way as to make her to
imagine that, once invested with it, her physical charm would show more
than it ever had.
Moved by this thought, she paused and exclaimed: “Oh, isn’t
that just the classiest, darlingest little coat you ever saw! Oh, look at
those sleeves, Doris.” She clutched her companion by the arm. “Look at
the collar. And the lining! And those pockets! Oh, dear!” she was
trembling with intensity of her approval and delight. “Oh, isn’t it just too
sweet for words? And the very kind of coat I’ve been thinking of since I
don’t know when!” she exclaimed. “Oh, if I could only have it.”
She clapped her hands admiringly while Isadore Rubinstein, the
elderly son of the proprietor, who was standing somewhat out of the
range of her gaze at the moment, noted the gesture and her enthusiasm
and decided immediately that the coat must be worth at least twenty-five

5
Друкується за виданням: Буданов С.Г., Ріхтер А.Г. Посібник з
позааудиторного читання англійською мовою: Навч. вид. – К: Вища шк.,
1992. С.17-21.

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