"Roly!" cried the stout Kitty from the other end, "show the young officers the lightning; or else, look you, you're taking the money only for nothing, you good-for-nothing camel."

"Right away!" merrily responded Roly-Poly. "Most illustrious benefactors, turn your attention this way. Living Pictures. Thunder Storm on a Summer Day in June. The work of the unrecognized dramaturgist who concealed himself under the pseudonym of Roly-Poly. The first picture.

"'It was a splendid day in June. The scorching rays of the sun illumined the blossoming meadows and environs ...'"

Roly-Poly's Don Quixotic phiz spread into a wrinkled, sweetish smile; and the eyes narrowed into half-circles.

"'... But now in the distance the first clouds have appeared upon the horizon. They grew, piled upon each other like crags, covering little by little the blue vault of the sky."

By degrees the smile was coming off Roly-Poly's face, and it grew more and more serious and austere.

"'At last the clouds have overcast the sun ... An ominous darkness has fallen ...'"

Roly-Poly made his physiognomy altogether ferocious.

"'The first drops of the rain fell ...'"

Roly-Poly began to drum his fingers on the back of a chair.

"'... In the distance flashed the first lightning ... '"

Roly-Poly's eye winked quickly, and the left corner of his mouth gave a twitch.

"'... Whereupon the rain began to pour down in torrents, and there came a sudden, blinding flash of lightning...'"

And with unusual artistry and rapidity Roly-Poly, with a successive movement of his eyebrows, eyes, nose, the upper and the lower lip, portrayed a lightning zig-zag.

"'... A jarring thunder clap burst out—trrroo-oo. An oak that had stood through the ages fell down to earth, as though it were a frail reed ...'"

And Roly-Poly with an ease and daring not to be expected from one of his years, bending neither the knees nor the back, only drawing down his head, instantaneously fell down; straight, like a statue, with his back to the floor, but at once deftly sprang up on his feet.

"'But now the thunder storm is gradually abating. The lightning flashes less and less often. The thunder sounds duller, just like a satiated beast—oooooo-oooooo ... The clouds scurry away. The first rays of the blessed sun have peeped out ...'"

Roly-Poly made a wry smile.

"'... And now, the luminary of day has at last begun to shine anew over the bathed earth ...'"

And the silliest of beatific smiles spread anew over the senile face of Roly-Poly.

The cadets gave him a twenty-kopeck piece each. He laid them on his palm, made a pass in the air with the other hand, said: ein, zwei, drei, snapped two of his fingers, and the coins vanished.

"Tamarochka, this isn't honest," he said reproachfully. "Aren't you ashamed to take the last money from a poor retired almost-head-officer? Why have you hidden them here?"

And, having snapped his fingers again, he drew the coins out of Tamara's ear.

"I shall return at once, don't be bored without me," he reassured the young people; "but if you can't wait for me, then I won't have any special pretensions about it. I have the honour! ..."

"Roly-Poly!" Little White Manka cried after him, "Won't you buy me candy for fifteen kopecks... Turkish Delight, fifteen kopecks' worth. There, grab!"

Roly-Poly neatly caught in its flight the thrown fifteen-kopeck piece; made a comical curtsey and, pulling down the uniform cap with the green edging at a slant over his eyes, vanished.

The tall, old Henrietta walked up to the cadets, also asked for a smoke and, having yawned, said:

"If only you young people would dance a bit—for as it is the young ladies sit and sit, just croaking from weariness."

"If you please, if you please!" agreed Kolya. "Play a waltz and something else of the sort."

The musicians began to play. The girls started to whirl around with one another, ceremoniously as usual, with stiffened backs and with eyes modestly cast down.

Kolya Gladishev, who was very fond of dancing, could not hold out and invited Tamara; he knew even from the previous winter that she danced more lightly and skillfully than the rest. While he was twirling in the waltz, the stout head-conductor, skillfully making his way between the couples, slipped away unperceived through the drawing room. Kolya did not have a chance to notice him.

No matter how Verka pressed Petrov, she could not, in any way, drag him off his place. The recent light intoxication had by now gone entirely out of his head; and more and more horrible, and unrealizable, and monstrous did that for which he had come here seem to him. He might have gone away, saying that not a one here pleased him; have put the blame on a headache, or something; but he knew that Gladishev would not let him go; and mainly—it seemed unbearably hard to get up from his place and to walk a few steps by himself. And, besides that, he felt that he had not the strength to start talking of this with Kolya.

They finished dancing. Tamara and Gladishev again sat down side by side.

"Well, really, how is it that Jennechka isn't coming by now?" asked Kolya impatiently.

Tamara quickly gave Verka a look with a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, in her eyes. Verka quickly lowered her eyelashes. This signified: yes, he is gone.

"I'll go right away and call her," said Tamara.

"But what are you so stuck on your Jennka for," said Henrietta. "You might take me."

"All right, another time," answered Kolya and nervously began to smoke.

Jennka was not even beginning to dress yet. She was sitting before the mirror and powdering her face.

"What is it, Tamarochka?" she asked.

"Your little cadet has come to you. He's waiting."

"Ah, that's the little baby of last year... Well, the devil with him!"

"And that's right, too. But how healthy and handsome the lad has grown, and how tall... It's a delight, that's all! So if you don't want to, I'll go myself."

Tamara saw in the mirror how Jennka contracted her eyebrows.

"No, you wait a while, Tamara, don't. I'll see. Send him here to me. Say that I'm not well, that my head aches."

"I have already told him, anyway, that Zociya had opened the door unsuccessfully and hit you on the head; and that you're lying down with a cold pack. But the only thing is, is it worth while, Jennechka?"

"Whether it's worth while or not, that's not your business, Tamara," answered Jennka rudely.

Tamara asked cautiously:

"Is it possible, then, that you aren't at all, at all sorry?"

"But for me you aren't sorry?" and she passed her hand over the red stripe that slashed her throat. "And for yourself you aren't sorry? And not sorry for this Liubka, miserable as she is? And not sorry for Pashka? You're huckleberry jelly, and not a human being!"

Tamara smiled craftily and haughtily:

"No, when it comes to a real matter, I'm not jelly. Perhaps you'll see this soon, Jennechka. Only let's better not quarrel—as it is it isn't any too sweet to live. All right, I'll go at once and send him to you."

When she had gone away, Jennka lowered the light in the little hanging blue lantern, put on her night blouse, and lay down. A minute later Gladishev walked in; and after him Tamara, dragging Petrov by the hand, who resisted and kept his head down. And in the rear was thrust in the pink, sharp, foxy little phiz of the cross-eyed housekeeper Zociya.

"And that's fine, now," the housekeeper commenced to bustle. "It's just sweet to look at; two handsome gents and two swell dames. A regular bouquet. What shall I treat you with, young people? Will you order beer or wine?"

Gladishev had a great deal of money in his pocket, as much as he never had before during all his brief life—all of twenty-five roubles; and he wanted to go on a splurge. Beer he drank only out of bravado, but could not bear its bitter taste, and wondered himself how others could ever drink it. And for that reason, squeamishly, like an old rake, sticking out his lower lip, he said mistrustfully:

"But then, you surely must have some awful stuff?"

"What do you mean, what do you mean, good-looking! The very best gentlemen approve of it. Of the sweet, there are Cagore, church wine, Teneriffe; while of the French there's Lafitte. You can get port wine also. The girls just simply adore Lafitte with lemonade."

"And what are the prices?"

"No dearer than money. As is the rule in all good establishments—a bottle of Lafitte five roubles, four bottles of lemonade at a half each, that's two roubles, and only seven in all..."

"That'll do you, Zociya," Jennka stopped her indifferently, "it's a shame to take advantage of boys. Even five is enough. You can see these are decent people, and not just anybody..."

But Gladishev turned red, and with a negligent air threw a ten rouble note on the table.

"Oh, what's the use of talking about it. All right, bring it."

"Whilst I'm at it, I'll take the money for the visit as well. What about you, young people—are you on time or for the night? You know the rates yourself: on time, at two roubles; for the night, at five."

"All right, all right. On time," interrupted Jennka, flaring up. "Trust us in that, at least."

The wine was brought. Tamara through importunity got pastry, besides. Jennka asked for permission to call in Little White Manka. Jennka herself did not drink, did not get up from the bed, and all the time muffled herself up in a gray shawl of Orenburg[24] manufacture, although it was hot in the room. She looked fixedly, without tearing her eyes away, at the handsome, sunburned face of Gladishev, which had become so manly.

[24] Orenburg has as high a reputation for woolens as Sheffield has for steel.—Trans.

"What's the matter with you, dearie?" asked Gladishev, sitting down on her bed and stroking her hand.

"Nothing special... Head aches a little... I hit myself."

"Well, don't you pay any attention."

"Well, here I've seen you, and already I feel better. How is it you haven't been here for so long?"

"I couldn't snatch away the time, nohow-camping. You know yourself... We had to put away twenty-five versts a day. The whole day drilling and drilling: field, formation, garrison. With a full pack. Used to get so fagged out from morning to night that towards evening you couldn't feel your legs under you... We were at the manoeuvres also... It isn't sweet..."

"Oh, you poor little things!" Little White Manka suddenly clasped her hands. "And what do they torture you for, angels that you are? If I was to have a brother like you, or a son—my heart would just simply bleed. Here's to your health, little cadet!"

They clinked glasses. Jennka was just as attentively scrutinizing Gladishev.

"And you, Jennechka?" he asked, extending a glass.

"I don't want to," she answered listlessly, "but, however, ladies, you've drunk some wine, chatted a bit—don't wear the welcome off the mat."

"Perhaps you'll stay with me the whole night?" she asked Gladishev, when the others had gone away. "Don't you be afraid, dearie; if you won't have enough money, I'll pay the difference for you. You see, how good-looking you are, that a wench does not grudge even money for you?" she began laughing.

Gladishev turned around to her; even his unobserving ear was struck by Jennka's strange tone—neither sad, nor kindly, nor yet mocking.

"No, sweetie, I'd be very glad to; I'd like to remain myself, but I can't possibly; I promised to be home toward ten o'clock."

"That's nothing, dear, they'll wait; you're altogether a grown-up man now. Is it possible that you have to listen to anybody? ... But, however, as you wish. Shall I put out the light entirely, perhaps; or is it all right the way it is? Which do you want—the outside or near the wall?"

"It's immaterial to me," he answered in a quavering voice; and, having embraced with his arm the hot, dry body of Jennka, he stretched with his lips toward her face. She slightly repulsed him.

"Wait, bear a while, sweetheart—we have time enough to kiss our fill yet. Just lie still for one little minute... So, now... quiet, peaceful... don't stir..."

These words, passionate and imperious, acted like hypnosis upon Gladishev. He submitted to her and lay down on his back, putting his hands underneath his head. She raised herself a little, leant upon her elbow, and placing her head upon the bent hand, silently, in the faint half-light, was looking his body over—so white, strong, muscular; with a high and broad pectoral cavity; with well-made ribs; with a narrow pelvis; and with mighty, bulging thighs. The dark tan of the face and the upper half of the neck was divided by a sharp line from the whiteness of the shoulders and breast.

Gladishev blinked for a second. It seemed to him that he was feeling upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a cloth—the sensation of a thin, imponderous, living matter.

He opened his eyes and saw altogether near him the large, dark, uncanny eyes of the woman, who seemed to him now an entire stranger.

"What are you looking at, Jennie?" he asked quietly. "What are you thinking of?"

"My dear little boy! ...They call you Kolya: isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"Don't be angry at me, carry out a certain caprice of mine, please: shut your eyes again... no, even tighter, tighter... I want to turn up the light and have a good look at you. There now, so... If you only knew how beautiful you are now... right now... this second. Later you will become coarse, and you will begin giving off a goatish smell; but now you give off an odour of fur and milk... and a little of some wild flower. But shut them—shut your eyes!"

She added light, returned to her place, and sat down in her favourite pose—Turkish fashion. Both kept silent. In the distance, several rooms away, a broken-down grand piano was tinkling; somebody's vibrating laughter floated in; while from the other side—a little song, and rapid, merry talking. The words could not be heard. A cabby was rumbling by somewhere through the distant street...

"And now I will infect him right away, just like all the others," pondered Jennka, gliding with a deep gaze over his well-made legs, his handsome torso of a future athlete, and over his arms, thrown back, upon which, above the bend of the elbow, the muscles tautened—bulging, firm. "Why, then, am I so sorry for him? Or is it because he is such a good-looking little fellow? No. I am long since a stranger to such feelings. Or is it because he is a boy? Why, only a little over a year ago I shoved apples in his pocket, when he was going away from me at night. Why have I not told him then that which, I can, and dare, tell him now? Or would he not have believed me, anyway? Would have grown angry? Would have gone to another? For sooner or later this turn awaits every man... And that he bought me for money—can that be forgiven? Or did he act just as all of them do—blindly? ..."

"Kolya!" she said quietly, "Open your eyes."

He obeyed, opened his eyes, turned to her; entwined her neck with his arm, drew her a little to him, and wanted to kiss her in the opening of her chemise—on the breast. She again tenderly but commandingly repulsed him.

"No, wait a while, wait a while—hear me out... one little minute more. Tell me, boy, why do you come here to us—to the women?"

Kolya quietly and hoarsely began laughing.

"How silly you are! Well, what do they all come for? Am I not also a man? For, it seems, I'm at that age when in every man ripens... well, a certain need... for woman. For I'm not going to occupy myself with all sorts of nastiness!"

"Need? Only need? That means, just as for that chamber which stands under my bed?"

"No, why so?" retorted Kolya, with a kindly laugh. "I liked you very much... From the very first time... If you will, I'm even... a little in love with you... at least, I never stayed with any of the others."

"Well, all right! But then, the first time, could it possibly have been need?"

"No, perhaps, it wasn't need even; but somehow, vaguely, I wanted woman... My friends talked me into it... Many had already gone here before me... So then, I too..."

"But, now, weren't you ashamed the first time?"

Kolya became confused; all this interrogation was to him unpleasant, oppressive. He felt, that this was not the empty, idle bed talk, so well known to him, out of his small experience; but something else, of more import.

"Let's say... not that I was ashamed... well, but still I felt kind of awkward. I drank that time to get up courage."

Jennie again lay down on her side; leaned upon her elbow, and again looked at him from time to time, near at hand and intently.

"But tell me, sweetie," she asked, in a barely audible voice, so that the cadet with difficulty made out her words, "tell me one thing more; but the fact of your paying money, these filthy two roubles—do you understand?—paying them for love, so that I might caress, kiss you, give all my body to you—didn't you feel ashamed to pay for that? Never?"

"Oh, my God! What strange questions you put to me to-day! But then they all pay money! Not I, then some one else would have paid—isn't it all the same to you?"

"And have you been in love with any one, Kolya? Confess! Well, now, if not in real earnest, then just so... at soul... Have you done any courting? Brought little flowers of some sort... Strolled arm-in-arm with her under the moon? Wasn't that so?"

"Well, yes," said Koiya in a sedate bass. "What follies don't happen in one's youth! It's a matter anyone can understand..."

"Some sort of a little first cousin? An educated young lady? A boarding school miss? A high school girl? ... There has been, hasn't there?"

"Well, yes, of course—everybody has them."

"Why, you wouldn't have touched her, would you? ... You'd have spared her? Well, if she had only said to you: take me, but only give me two roubles—what would you have said to her?"

"I don't understand you, Jennka!" Gladishev suddenly grew angry. "What are you putting on airs for! What sort of comedy are you trying to put over! Honest to God, I'll dress myself at once and go away."

"Wait a while, wait a while, Kolya! One more, one more, the last, the very, very last question."

"Oh, you!" growled Kolya displeased.

"And could you never imagine... well, imagine it right now, even for a second... that your family has suddenly grown poor, become ruined. You'd have to earn your bread by copying papers; or, now, let's say, through carpenter or blacksmith work; and your sister was to go wrong, like all of us... yes, yes, yours, your own sister... if some blockhead seduced her and she was to go travelling... from hand to hand... what would you say then?"

"Bosh! ... That can't be..." Kolya cut her short curtly. "But, however, that's enough—I'm going away!"

"Go away, do me that favour! I've ten roubles lying there, near the mirror, in a little box from chocolates—take them for yourself. I don't need them, anyway. Buy with them a tortoise powder box with a gold setting for your mamma; and if you have a little sister, buy her a good doll. Say: in memory from a certain wench that died. Go on, little boy!"

Kolya, with a frown, angry, with one shove of a well-knit body jumped off the bed, almost without touching it. Now he was standing on the little mat near the bed, naked, well-formed, splendid in all the magnificence of his blooming, youthful body.

"Kolya!" Jennka called him quietly, insistently and caressingly. "Kolechka!"

He turned around to her call, and drew in the air in a short, jerky gust, as though he had gasped: he had never yet in his life met anywhere, even in pictures, such a beautiful expression of tenderness, sorrow, and womanly silent reproach, as the one he was just now beholding in the eyes of Jennka, filled with tears. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and impulsively embraced her around the bared, swarthy arms.

"Let's not quarrel, then, Jennechka," he said tenderly.

And she twined herself around him, placed her arms on his neck, while her head she pressed against his breast. They kept silent so for several seconds.

"Kolya," Jennie suddenly asked dully, "but were you never afraid of becoming infected?"

Kolya shivered. Some chill, loathsome horror stirred and glided through within his soul. He did not answer at once.

"Of course, that would be horrible... horrible... God save me! But then I go only to you alone, only to you! You'd surely have told me? ..."

"Yes, I'd have told you," she uttered meditatively. And at once rapidly, consciously, as though having weighed the significance of her words: "Yes, of course, of course, I would have told you! But haven't you ever heard what sort of a thing is that disease called syphilis?"

"Of course, I've heard... The nose falls through..."

"No, Kolya, not only the nose! The person becomes all diseased: his bones, sinews, brains grow diseased... Some doctors say such nonsense as that it's possible to be cured of this disease. Bosh! You'll never cure yourself! A person rots ten, twenty, thirty years. Every second paralysis can strike him down, so that the right side of the face, the right arm, the right leg die—it isn't a human being that's living, but some sort of a little half. Half-man-half-corpse. The majority of them go out of their minds. And each understands... every person... each one so infected understands, that if he eats, drinks, kisses, simply even breathes—he can't be sure that he won't immediately infect some one of those around him, the very nearest—sister, wife, son... To all syphilitics the children are born monsters, abortions, goitrous, consumptives, idiots. There, Kolya, is what this disease means. And now," Jennka suddenly straightened up quickly, seized Kolya fast by his bare shoulders, turned his face to her, so that he was almost blinded by the flashing of her sorrowful, sombre, extraordinary eyes, "and now, Kolya, I will tell you that for more than a month I am sick with this filth. And that's just why I haven't allowed you to kiss me..."

"You're joking! ... You're teasing me on purpose, Jennie!" muttered Gladishev, wrathful, frightened, and out of his wits.

"Joking? ...Come here!"

She abruptly compelled him to get up on his feet, lit a match and said:

"Now look closely at what I'm going to show you..."

She opened her mouth wide and placed the light so that it would illumine her larynx. Kolya looked and staggered back.

"Do you see these white spots? This is syphilis, Kolya! Do you understand?—syphilis in the most fearful, the most serious stage. Now dress yourself and thank God."

He, silently and without looking around at Jennka, began to dress hurriedly, missing his clothes when he tried to put his legs through. His hands were shaking, and his under jaw jumped so that the lower teeth knocked against the upper; while Jennka was speaking with bowed head:

"Listen, Kolya, it's your good fortune that you've run across an honest woman; another wouldn't have spared you. Do you hear that? We, whom you deprive of innocence and then drive out of your home, while later you pay us two roubles a visit, we always—do you understand?"—she suddenly raised her head—"we always hate you and never have any pity for you!"

The half-clad Kolya suddenly dropped his dressing, sat down on the bed near Jennka and, covering his face with his palms, burst into tears; sincerely, altogether like a child...

"Lord, Lord," he whispered, "why this is the truth! ... What a vile thing this really is! ... We, also, we had this happen: we had a chambermaid, Niusha...a chambermaid... they also called her signorita Anita...a pretty little girl...and my brother lived with her...my elder brother...an officer...and when he went away, she proved pregnant and mother drove her out...well, yes—drove her out...threw her out of the house, like a floor mop...Where is she now? And father...father...he also with a cham...chambermaid."

And the half-naked Jennka, this Jennka, the atheist, swearer, and brawler, suddenly got up from the bed, stood before the cadet, and slowly, almost solemnly, made the sign of the cross over him.

"And may God preserve you my boy!" she said with an expression of deep tenderness and gratitude.

And at once she ran to the door, opened it and called out: "Housekeeper!"

"Tell you what, housekeeper dear," Jennka directed, "go and find out, please, which one of them is free—Tamara or Little White Manka. And the one that's free send here."

Kolya growled out something in the back, but Jennka purposely did not listen to him.

"And please make it as quick as possible, housekeeper dear, won't you be so kind?"

"Right away, right away, miss."

"Why, why do you do this, Jennie?" asked Gladishev with anguish. "Well, what's that for? ...Is it possible that you want to tell about it? ..."

"Wait awhile, that's not your business...Wait a while, I won't do anything unpleasant for you."

After a minute Little White Manka came in her brown, smooth, deliberately modest dress of a high school girl.

"What did you call me for, Jennie? Or have you quarreled?"

"No, we haven't quarreled, Mannechka, but my head aches very much," answered Jennka calmly, "and for that reason my little friend finds me very cold. Be a friend, Mannechka, stay with him, take my place!"

"That's enough, Jennie, stop it, darling!" in a tone of sincere suffering retorted Kolya. "I understand everything, everything, it's not necessary now ... Don't be finishing me off, then! ..."

"I don't understand anything of what's happened," the frivolous Manka spread out her hands. "Maybe you'll treat a poor little girl to something?"

"Well, go on, go on!" Jennka sent her away gently. "I'll come right away. We just played a joke."

Already dressed, they stood for long in the open door between the bedroom and the corridor; and without words sadly looked at each other. And Kolya did not understand, but sensed, that at this moment in his soul was taking place one of those tremendous crises which tell imperiously upon the entire life.

Then he pressed Jennie's hand hard and said:

"Forgive! ... Will you forgive me, Jennie? Will you forgive? ..."

"Yes, my boy! ... Yes, my fine one! ... Yes...yes..."

She tenderly, softly, like a mother, stroked his closely cropped harsh head and gave him, a slight shove into the corridor.

"Where are you bound now?" she sent after him, half opening her door.

"I'll take my comrade right away, and then home."

"As you know best! ... God bless you, dearie!"

"Forgive me! ... Forgive me! ..." once more repeated Kolya, stretching out his hands to her.

"I've already told you, my splendid boy...And you forgive me too...For we won't see each other anymore!"

And she, having closed the door, was left alone.

In the corridor Gladishev hesitated, because he did not know how to find the room to which Petrov had retired with Tamara. But the housekeeper Zociya helped him, running past him very quickly, and with a very anxious, alarmed air.

"Oh, I haven't time to bother with you now!" she snarled back at Gladishev's question. "Third door to the left."

Kolya walked up to the door indicated and knocked. Some sort of bustle and whispering sounded in the room. He knocked once more.

"Kerkovius, open! This is me—Soliterov."

Among the cadets, setting out on expeditions of this sort, it was always agreed upon to call each other by fictitious names. It was not so much a conspiracy or a shift against the vigilance of those in authority, or fear of compromising one's self before a chance acquaintance of the family, but rather a play, of its own kind, at mysteriousness and disguise—a play tracing its beginning from those times when the young people were borne away by Gustave Aimard, Mayne Reid, and the detective Lecocq.

"You can't come in!" the voice of Tamara came from behind the door. "You can't come in. We are busy."

But the bass voice of Petrov immediately cut her short:

"Nonsense! She's lying. Come in. It's all right."

Kolya opened the door.

Petrov was sitting on a chair dressed, but all red, morose, with lips pouting like a child's, with downcast eyes.

"Well, what a friend you've brought—I must say!" Tamara began speaking sneeringly and wrathfully. "I thought he was a man in earnest, but this is only some sort of a little girl! He's sorry to lose his innocence, if you please. What a treasure you've found, to be sure! But take back, take back your two roubles!" she suddenly began yelling at Petrov and tossed two coins on the table. "You'll give them away to some poor chambermaid or other! Or else save them for gloves for yourself, you marmot!"

"But what are you cursing for?" grumbled Petrov, without raising his eyes. "I'm not cursing you, am I? Then why do you curse first? I have a full right to act as I want to. But I have passed some time with you, and so take them. But to be forced, I don't want to. And on your part, Gladishev—that is, Soliterov—this isn't at all nice. I thought she was a nice girl, but she's trying to kiss all the time, and does God knows what..."

Tamara, despite her wrath, burst into laughter.

"Oh, you little stupid, little stupid! Well, don't be angry—I'll take your money. Only watch: this very evening you'll be sorry, you'll be crying. Well, don't be angry, don't be angry, angel, let's make up. Put your hand out to me, as I'm doing to you."

"Let's go, Kerkovius," said Gladishev. "Au revoir, Tamara!"

Tamara let the money down into her stocking, through the habit of all prostitutes, and went to show the boys the way.

Even at the time that they were passing through the corridor Gladishev was struck by the strange, silent, tense bustle in the drawing room; the trampling of feet and some muffled, low-voiced, rapid conversations.

Near that place where they had just been sitting below the picture, all the inmates of Anna Markovna's house and several outsiders had gathered. They were standing in a close knot, bending down. Kolya walked up with curiosity, and, wedging his way through a little, looked in between the heads: on the floor, sideways, somehow unnaturally drawn up, was lying Roly-Poly. His face was blue, almost black. He did not move, and was lying strangely small, shrunken, with legs bent. One arm was squeezed in under his breast, while the other was flung back.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Gladishev in a fright.

Niurka answered him, starting to speak in a rapid, jerky whisper:

"Roly-Poly just came here...Gave Manka the candy, and then started in to put Armenian riddles to us...'Of a blue colour, hangs in the parlor and whistles'...We couldn't guess nohow, but he says: 'A herring'...Suddenly he started laughing, had a coughing spell, and began falling sideways; and then—bang on the ground and don't move...They sent for the police...Lord, there's doings for you! ... I'm horribly afraid of corpseses!"

"Wait!" Gladishev stopped her. "It's necessary to feel his forehead; he may be alive yet..."

He did try to thrust himself forward, but Simeon's fingers, just like iron pincers, seized him above the elbows and dragged him back.

"There's nothing, there's nothing to be inspecting," sternly ordered Simeon, "go on, now, young gents, out of here! This is no place for you: the police will come, will summon you as witnesses—then it's scat! to the devil's dam! for you out of the military high school! Better go while you're good and healthy!"

He escorted them to the entrance hall, shoved the great-coats into their hands and added still more sternly:

"Well, now—go at a run...Lively! So's there won't be even a whiff of you left. And if you come another time, then I won't let youse in at all. You are wise guys, you are! You gave the old hound money for whiskey—so now he's gone and croaked."

"Well, don't you get too smart, now!" Gladishev flew at him, all ruffled up.

"What d'you mean, don't get smart? ..." Simeon suddenly began to yell infuriatedly, and his black eyes without lashes and brows became so terrible that the cadets shrank back. "I'll soak you one on the snout so hard you'll forget how to say papa and mamma! Git, this second! Or else I'll bust you in the neck!"

The boys went down the steps.

At this time two men were going up, in cloth caps on the sides of their heads; one in a blue, the other in a red blouse, with the skirts outside, under the unbuttoned, wide open jackets—evidently, Simeon's comrades in the profession.

"What?" one of them called out gaily from below, addressing Simeon, "Is it bye-bye for Roly-Poly?"

"Yes, it must be the finish," answered Simeon. "We've got to throw him out into the street in the meantime, fellows, or else the spirits will start haunting. The devil with him, let 'em think that he drank himself full and croaked on the road."

"But you didn't ... well, now? ... You didn't do for him?"

"Well, now, there's foolish talk! If there'd only been some reason. He was a harmless fellow. Altogether like a little lamb. It must be just that his turn came."

"And didn't he find a place where to die! Couldn't he have thought up something worse?" said the one who was in the red shirt.

"Right you are, there!" seconded the other. "Lived to grin and died in sin. Well, let's go, mate, what?"

The cadets ran with all their might. Now, in the darkness, the figure of Roly-Poly drawn up on the floor, with his blue face, appeared before them in all the horror that the dead possess for early youth; and especially if recalled at night, in the dark.



CHAPTER IV.

A fine rain, like dust, obstinate and tedious, had been drizzling since morning. Platonov was working in the port at the unloading of watermelons. At the mill, where he had since the very summer proposed to establish himself, luck had turned against him; after a week he had already quarreled, and almost had a fight, with the foreman, who was extremely brutal with the workers. About a month Sergei Ivanovich had struggled along somehow from hand to mouth, somewheres in the back-yards of Temnikovskaya Street, dragging into the editorial rooms of The Echoes, from time to time, notes of street accidents or little humorous scenes from the court rooms of the justices of the peace. But the hard newspaper game had long ago grown distasteful to him. He was always drawn to adventures, to physical labour in the fresh air, to life completely devoid of even the least hint at comfort; to care-free vagabondage, in which a man, having cast from him all possible external conditions, does not know himself what is going to be with him on the morrow. And for that reason, when from the lower stretches of the Dnieper the first barges with watermelons started coming in, he willingly entered a gang of labourers, in which he was known even from last year, and loved for his merry nature, for his comradely spirit, and for his masterly ability of keeping count.

This labour was carried on with good team work and with skill. Four parties, each of five men, worked on each barge. Number one would reach for a watermelon and pass it on to the second, who was standing on the side of the barge. The second cast it to the third, standing already on the wharf; the third threw it over to the fourth; while the fourth handed it up to the fifth, who stood on a horse cart and laid the watermelons away—now dark-green, now white, now striped—into even glistening rows. This work is clean, lively, and progresses rapidly. When a good party is gotten up, it is a pleasure to see how the watermelons fly from hand to hand, are caught with a circus-like quickness and success, and anew, and anew, without a break, fly, in order to fill up the dray. It is only difficult for the novices, that have not as yet gained the skill, have not caught on to that especial sense of the tempo. And it is not as difficult to catch a watermelon as to be able to throw it.

Platonov remembered well his first experiences of last year. What swearing—virulent, mocking, coarse—poured down upon him when for the third or fourth time he had been gaping and had slowed up the passing: two watermelons, not thrown in time, had smashed against the pavement with a succulent crunch, while the completely lost Platonov dropped the one which he was holding in his hands as well. The first time they treated him gently; on the second day, however, for every mistake they began to deduct from him five kopecks per watermelon out of the common share. The following time when this happened, they threatened to throw him out of the party at once, without any reckoning. Platonov even now still remembered how a sudden fury seized him: "Ah, so? The devil take you!" he had thought. "And yet you want me to be chary of your watermelons? So then, here you are, here you are! ..." This flare-up helped him as though instantaneously. He carelessly caught the watermelons, just as carelessly threw them over, and to his amazement suddenly felt that precisely just now he had gotten into the real swing of the work with all his muscles, sight, and breathing; and understood, that the most important thing was not to think at all of the watermelons representing some value, and that then everything went well. When he, finally, had fully mastered this art, it served him for a long time as a pleasant and entertaining athletic game of its own kind. But that, too, passed away. He reached, in, the end, the stage where he felt himself a will-less, mechanical wheel in a general machine consisting of five men and an endless chain of flying watermelons.

Now he was number two. Bending downward rhythmically, he, without looking, received with both hands the cold, springy, heavy watermelon; swung it to the right; and, also almost without looking, or looking only out of the corner of his eye, tossed it downward, and immediately once again bent down for the next watermelon. And his ear seized at this time how smack-smack ...smack-smack...the caught watermelons slapped in the hands; and immediately bent downwards and again threw, letting the air out of himself noisily—ghe...ghe...

The present work was very profitable; their gang, consisting of forty men, had taken on the work, thanks to the great rush, not by the day but by the amount of work done, by the waggon load. Zavorotny, the head—an enormous, mighty Poltavian—had succeeded with extreme deftness in getting around the owner; a young man, and, to boot, in all probability not very experienced as yet. The owner, it is true, came to his senses later and wanted to change the stipulations; but experienced melon growers dissuaded him from it in time: "Drop it. They'll kill you," they told him simply and firmly. And so, through this very stroke of good luck every member of the gang was now earning up to four roubles a day. They all worked with unusual ardour, even with some sort of vehemence; and if it had been possible to measure with some apparatus the labour of each one of them, then, in all probability, the number of units of energy created would have equalled the work of a large Voronezhian train horse.

However, Zavorotny was not satisfied even with this—he hurried and hurried his lads on all the time. Professional ambition was speaking within him; he wanted to bring the daily earnings of every member of the gang up to five roubles per snout. And gaily, with unusual ease, twinkled from the harbour to the waggon, twirling and flashing, the wet green and white watermelons; and their succulent plashing resounded against accustomed palms.

But now a long blast sounded on the dredging machine in the port. A second, a third, responded to it on the river; a few more on shore; and for a long time they roared together in a mighty chorus of different voices.

"Ba-a-a-st-a-a!" hoarsely and thickly, exactly like a locomotive blast, Zavorotny started roaring.

And now the last smack-smack—and the work stopped instantaneously.

Platonov with enjoyment straightened out his back and bent it backward, and spread out his swollen arms. With pleasure he thought of having already gotten over that first pain in all the muscles, which tells so during the first days, when one is just getting back into the work after disuse. While up to this day, awaking in the mornings in his lair on Temnikovskaya—also to the sound of a factory blast agreed upon—he would during the first minutes experience such fearful pains in his neck, back, in his arms and legs, that it seemed to him as if only a miracle would be able to compel him to get up and make a few steps.

"Go-o-o and e-at," Zavorotny began to clamour again.

The stevedores went down to the water; got down on their knees or laid down flat on the gangplank or on the rafts; and, scooping up the water in handfuls, washed their wet, heated faces and arms. Right here, too, on the shore, to one side, where a little grass had been left yet, they disposed themselves for dinner: placed in a circle ten of the most ripe watermelons, black bread, and twenty dried porgies. Gavriushka the Bullet was already running with a half-gallon bottle to the pot-house and was singing as he went the soldiers' signal for dinner:

"Drag spoon and mess-kit out, If there's no bread, eat without."

A bare-footed urchin, dirty and so ragged that there was more of his bare body than clothes upon him, ran up to the gang.

"Which one of you here is Platonov?" he asked, quickly running over them with his thievish eyes.

"I'm Platonov, and by what name do they tease you?"

"Around the corner here, behind the church, some sort of a young lady is waiting for you...Here's a note for you."

The whole gang neighed deeply.

"What d'you open up your mouths for, you pack of fools!" said Platonov calmly. "Give me the note here."

This was a letter from Jennka, written in a round, naive, rolling, childish handwriting, and not very well spelt.

"Sergei Ivanich. Forgive me that I disturbe you. I must talk over a very, very important matter with you. I would not be troubling you if it was Trifles. For only 10 minutes in all. Jennka, whom you know, from Anna Markovna's."

Platonov got up.

"I'm going away for a little while," he said to Zavorotny. "When you begin, I'll be in my place."

"Now you've found somethin' to do," lazily and contemptuously said the head of the gang. "There's the night for that business...Go ahead, go ahead, who's holding you. But only if you won't be here when we begin work, then this day don't count. I'll take any tramp. And as many watermelons as he busts—that's out of your share, too...I didn't think it of you, Platonov—that you're such a he-dog..."

Jennka was waiting for him in the tiny little square, sheltered between a church and the wharf, and consisting of ten sorry poplars. She had on a gray, one-piece street dress; a simple, round, straw hat with a small black ribbon. "And yet, even though she has dressed herself simply," reflected Platonov, looking at her from a distance with his habitually puckered eyes, "and yet, every man will walk past, give a look, and inevitably look back three or four times; he'll feel the especial tone at once."

"Howdy do, Jennka! Very glad to see you," he said cordially, squeezing the girl's hand. "There, now, I didn't expect it!"

Jennka was reserved, sad, and apparently troubled over something. Platonov at once understood and sensed this.

"You excuse me, Jennechka, I must have dinner right away," said he, "so, perhaps, you'll go together with me and tell me what's the matter, while I'll manage to eat at the same time. There's a modest little inn not far from here. At this time there are no people there at all, and there's even a tiny little stall, a sort of a private room; that will be just the thing for you and me. Let's go! Perhaps you'll also have a bite of something."

"No. I won't eat," answered Jennka hoarsely, "and I won't detain you for long...a few minutes. I have to talk things over, have some advice—but I haven't anybody."

"Very well...Let's go then! In whatever way I can, I'm always at your service, in everything. I love you very much, Jennka!"

She looked at him sadly and gratefully.

"I know this, Serge Ivanovich; that's why I've come."

"You need money, perhaps? Just say so. I haven't got much with me, myself; but the gang will trust me with an advance."

"No, thanks...it isn't that at all. I'll tell everything at once, there, where we're going now."

In the dim, low-ceiled little inn, the customary haunt of petty thieves, where business was carried on only in the evening, until very far into the night, Platonov took the little half-dark cubby hole.

"Give me boiled meat, cucumbers, a large glass of vodka, and bread," he ordered the waiter.

The waiter—a young fellow with a dirty face; pugnosed; as dirty and greasy in all his person as though he had just been pulled out of a cesspool, wiped his lips and asked hoarsely:

"How many kopecks' bread?" "As much as it comes to." Then he started laughing:

"Bring as much as possible—we'll reckon it up later... and some bread cider!"

"Well, Jennie, say what your trouble is...I can already see by your face that there's trouble, or something distasteful in general...Go ahead and tell it!"

Jennka for a long time plucked her handkerchief and looked at the tips of her slippers, as though, gathering her strength. Timorousness had taken possession of her—the necessary and important words would not come into her mind, for anything. Platonov came to her aid: "Don't be embarrassed, my dear Jennie, tell all there is! For you know that I'm like one of the family, and will never give you away. And perhaps I may really give you some worth-while advice. Well, dive off with a splash into the water—begin!"

"That's just it, I don't know how to begin," said Jennka irresolutely. "Here's what, Sergei Ivanovich, I'm a sick woman...Understand?—sick in a bad way...With the most nasty disease...Do you know which?"

"Go on!" said Platonov, nodding his head.

"And I've been that way for a long time...more than a month...a month and a half, maybe...Yes, more than a month, because I found out about this on the Trinity..."

Platonov quickly rubbed his forehead with his hand. "Wait a while, I've recalled it...This was that day I was there together with the students...isn't that so?"

"That's right, Sergei Ivanovich, that's so..."

"Ah, Jennka," said Platonov reproachfully and with regret. "For do you know, that after this two of the students got sick...Wasn't it from you?"

Jennka wrathfully and disdainfully flashed her eyes.

"Perhaps even from me...How should I know? There were a lot of them...I remember there was this one, now, who was even trying to pick a fight with you all the time ...A tall sort of fellow, fair-haired, in pince-nez..."

"Yes, yes...That's Sobashnikov. They passed the news to me...That's he...that one was nothing—a little coxcomb! But then the other—him I'm sorry for. Although I've known him long, somehow I never made the right inquiries about his name...I only remember that he comes from some city or other—Poliyansk...Zvenigorodsk... His comrades called him Ramses...When the physicians—he turned to several physicians—when they told him irrevocably that he had the lues, he went home and shot himself...And in the note that he wrote there were amazing things, something like this: I supposed all the meaning of life to be in the triumph of mind, beauty and good; with this disease I am not a man, but junk, rottenness, carrion; a candidate for a progressive paralytic. My human dignity cannot reconcile itself to this. But guilty in all that has happened, and therefore in my death as well, am I alone; for that I, obeying a momentary bestial inclination, took a woman without love, for money. For that reason have I earned the punishment which I myself lay upon me..."

"I am sorry for him..." added Platonov quietly.

Jennka dilated her nostrils.

"But I, now, not the very least bit."

"That's wrong...You go away now, young fellow. When I'll need you I'll call out," said Platonov to the serving-man "Absolutely wrong, Jennechka! This was an unusually big and forceful man. Such come only one to the hundreds of thousands. I don't respect suicides. Most frequent of all, these are little boys, who shoot and hang themselves over trifles, like a child that has not been given a piece of candy, and hits itself against the wall to spite those around it. But before his death I reverently and with sorrow bow my head. He was a wise, generous, kindly man, attentive to all; and, as you see, too strict to himself."

"But to me this is absolutely all one," obstinately contradicted Jennka, "wise or foolish, honest or dishonest, old or young—I have come to hate them all. Because—look upon me—what am I? Some sort of universal spittoon, cesspool, privy. Think of it, Platonov; why, thousands, thousands of people have taken me, clutched me; grunted, snorted over me; and all those who were, and all those who might yet have been on my bed—oh, how I hate them all! If I only could, I would sentence them to torture by fire and iron! ... I would order..."

"You are malicious and proud, Jennie," said Platonov quietly.

"I was neither malicious nor proud...It's only now. I wasn't ten yet when my own mother sold me; and since that time I've been travelling from hand to hand... If only some one had seen a human being in me! No! ... I am vermin, refuse, worse than a beggar, worse than a thief, worse than a murderer! ... Even a hangman...we have even such coming to the establishment—and even he would have treated me loftily, with loathing: I am nothing; I am a public wench! Do you understand, Sergei Ivanovich, what a horrible word this is? Pub-lic! ... This means nobody's: not papa's, not mamma's, not Russian, not Riyazan, but simply—public! And not once did it enter anybody's head to walk up to me and think: why, now, this is a human being too; she has a heart and a brain; she thinks of something, feels something; for she's not made out of wood, and isn't stuffed with straw, small hay, or excelsior! And yet, only I feel this. I, perhaps, am the only one out of all of them who feels the horror of her position; this black, stinking, filthy pit. But then, all the girls with whom I have met, and with whom I am living right now—understand, Platonov, understand me!—why, they don't realize anything... Talking, walking pieces of meat! And this is even worse than my malice! ..."

"You are right!" said Platonov quietly. "And this is one of those questions where you'll always run up against a wall. No one will help you..."

"No one, no one! ..." passionately exclaimed Jennka. "Do you remember—this was while you were there: a student carried away our Liubka..."

"Why, certainly, I remember well! ... Well, and what then?"

"And this is what, that yesterday she came back tattered, wet...Crying...Left her, the skunk! ... Played a while at kindliness, and then away with her! 'You,' he says, 'are a sister.' 'I,' he says, 'will save you, make a human being of you...'"

"Is that possible?"

"Just so! ... One man I did see, kindly, indulgent, without the designs of a he-dog—that's you. But then, you're altogether different. You're somehow queer. You're always wandering somewhere, seeking something...You forgive me, Sergei Ivanovich, you're some sort of a little innocent! ... And that's just why I've come to you, to you alone! ..."

"Speak on, Jennechka..."

"And so, when I found out that I was sick, I almost went out of my mind from wrath; I choked from wrath ...I thought: and here's the end; therefore, there's no more use in pitying, there's nothing to grieve about, nothing to expect...The lid! ... But for all that I have borne—can it be that there's no paying back for it? Can it be that there's no justice in the world? Can it be that I can't even feast myself with revenge?—for that I have never known love; that of family life I know only by hearsay; that, like a disgustin', nasty little dog, they call me near, pat me and then with a boot over the head—get out!—that they made me over, from a human being, equal to all of them, no more foolish than all those I've met; made me over into a floor mop, some sort of a sewer pipe for their filthy pleasures? ...Ugh! ... Is it possible that for all of this I must take even such a disease with gratitude as well? ... Or am I a slave? ... A dumb object? ... A pack horse? ... And so, Platonov, it was just then that I resolved to infect them all: young, old, poor, rich, handsome, hideous—all, all, all! ..."

Platonov, who had already long since put his plate away from him, was looking at her with astonishment, and even more—almost with horror. He, who had seen in life much of the painful, the filthy, at times even of the bloody—he grew frightened with an animal fright before this intensity of enormous, unvented hatred. Coming to himself, he said:

"One great writer tells of such a case. The Prussians conquered the French and lorded it over them in every possible way: shot the men, violated the women, pillaged the houses, burned down the fields...And so one handsome woman—a Frenchwoman, very handsome,—having become infected, began out of spite to infect all the Germans who happened to fall into her embraces. She made ill whole hundreds, perhaps even thousands...And when she was dying in a hospital, she recalled this with joy and with pride...[25] But then, those were enemies, trampling upon her fatherland and slaughtering her brothers...But you, you, Jennechka! ..."

[25] This story is Lit. No. 29, by Guy de Maupassant.—Trans.

"But I—all, just all! Tell me, Sergei Ivanovich, only tell me on your conscience: if you were to find in the street a child, whom some one had dishonoured, had abused...well, let's say, had stuck its eyes out, cut its ears off—and then you were to find out that this man is at this minute walking past you, and that only God alone, if only He exists, is looking at you this minute from heaven—what would you do?"

"Don't know," answered Platonov, dully and downcast; but he paled, and his fingers underneath the table convulsively clenched into fists, "Perhaps I would kill him..."

"Not 'perhaps,' but certainly! I know you, I sense you. Well, and now think: every one of us has been abused so, when we were children! ... Children! ..." passionately moaned out Jennka and covered her eyes for a moment with her palm. "Why, it comes to me, you also spoke of this at one time, in our place—wasn't it on that same evening before the Trinity? ... Yes, children—foolish, trusting, blind, greedy, frivolous...And we cannot tear ourselves out of our harness...where are we to go? what are we to do? ... And please, don't you think it, Sergei Ivanovich—that the spite within me is strong only against those who wronged just me, me personally...No, against all our guests in general; all these cavaliers, from little to big...Well, and so I have resolved to avenge myself and my sisters. Is that good or no? ..."

"Jehnechka, really I don't know...I can't...I dare not say anything...I don't understand."

"But even that's not the main thing...For the main thing is this: I infected them, and did not feel anything—no pity, no remorse, no guilt before God or my fatherland. Within me was only joy, as in a hungry wolf that has managed to get at blood...But yesterday something happened which even I can't understand. A cadet came to me, altogether a little bit of a lad, silly, with yellow around his mouth...He used to come to me from still last winter...And then suddenly I had pity on him... Not because he was very handsome and very young; and not because he had always been very polite—even tender, if you will...No, both the one and the other had come to me, but I did not spare them: with enjoyment I marked them off, just like cattle, with a red-hot brand ...But this one I suddenly pitied...I myself don't understand—why? I can't make it out. It seemed to me, that it would be all the same as stealing money from a little simpleton, a little idiot; or hitting a blind man, or cutting a sleeper's throat...if he only were some dried-up marasmus or a nasty little brute, or a lecherous old fellow, I would not have stopped. But he was healthy, robust, with chest and arms like a statue's...and I could not... I gave him his money back, showed him my disease; in a word, I acted like a fool among fools. He went away from me...burst into tears...And now since last evening I haven't slept. I walk around as in a fog...Therefore—I'm thinking right now—therefore, that which, I meditated; my dream to infect them all; to infect their fathers, mothers, sisters, brides—even all the world—therefore, all this was folly, an empty fantasy, since I have stopped? ... Once again, I don't understand anything ...Sergei Ivanovich, you are so wise, you have seen so much of life—help me, then, to find myself now!..."

"I don't know, Jennechka!" quietly pronounced Platonov. "Not that I fear telling you, or advising you, but I know absolutely nothing. This is above my reason... above conscience..."

Jennie crossed her fingers and nervously cracked them.

"And I, too, don't know...Therefore, that which I thought—is not the truth. Therefore, there is but one thing left me...This thought came into my head this morning..."

"Don't, don't do it, Jennechka! ... Jennie! ..." Platonov quickly interrupted her.

"There's one thing: to hang myself..."

"No, no, Jennie, only not that! ... If there were other circumstances, unsurmountable, I would, believe me, tell you boldly: well, it's no use, Jennie; it's time to close up shop... But what you need isn't that at all... If you wish, I can suggest one way out to you, no less malicious and merciless; but which, perhaps, will satiate your wrath a hundredfold..."

"What's that?" asked Jennie, wearily, as though suddenly wilted after her flare-up.

"Well, this is it ... You're still young, and I'll tell you the truth, you are very handsome; that is, you can be, if you only want to, unusually stunning ... That's even more than beauty. But you've never yet known the bounds and the power of your appearance; and, mainly, you don't know to what a degree such natures as yours are bewitching, and how mightily they enchain men to them, and make out of them more than slaves and brutes ... You are proud, you are brave, you are independent, you are a clever woman. I know—you have read a great deal, let's presuppose even trashy books, but still you have read, you have an entirely different speech from the others. With a successful turn of life, you can cure yourself, you can get out of these 'Yamkas,' these 'Little Ditches,' into freedom. You have only to stir a finger, in order to see at your feet hundreds of men; submissive, ready for your sake for vileness, for theft, for embezzlement ... Lord it over them with tight reins, with a cruel whip in your hands! ... Ruin them, make them go out of their minds, as long as your desire and energy hold out! ... Look, my dear Jennie, who manages life now if not women! Yesterday's chambermaid, laundress, chorus girl goes through estates worth millions, the way a country-woman of Tver cracks sunflower seeds. A woman scarcely able to sign her name, at times affects the destiny of an entire kingdom through a man. Hereditary princes marry the street-walkers, the kept mistresses of yesterday... Jennechka, there is the scope for your unbridled vengeance; while I will admire you from a distance... For you—you are made of this stuff—you are a bird of prey, a spoliator... Perhaps not with such a broad sweep—but you will cast them down under your feet."

"No," faintly smiled Jennka. "I thought of this before ... But something of the utmost importance has burned out within me. There are no forces within me, there is no will within me, no desires ... I am somehow all empty inside, rotted ... Well, now, you know, there's a mushroom like that—white, round,—you squeeze it, and snuff pours out of it. And the same way with me. This life has eaten out everything within me save malice. And I am flabby, and my malice is flabby ... I'll see some little boy again, will have pity on him, will be punishing myself again ... No, it's better ... better so! ..."

She became silent. And Platonov did not know what to say. It became oppressive and awkward for both. Finally, Jennka got up, and, without looking at Platonov, extended her cold, feeble hand to him.

"Good-bye, Sergei Ivanovich! Excuse me, that I took up your time ... Oh, well, I can see myself that you'd help me, if you only could ... But, evidently, there's nothing to be done here ... Good-bye!"

"Only don't do anything foolish, Jennechka! I implore you! ..."

"Oh, that's all right!" said she and made a tired gesture with her hand.

Having come out of the square, they parted; but, having gone a few steps, Jennka suddenly called after him:

"Sergei Ivanovich, oh Sergei Ivanovich! ..."

He stopped, turned around, walked back to her.

"Roly-Poly croaked last evening in our drawing room. He jumped and he jumped, and then suddenly plumped down ... Oh, well, it's an easy death at least! And also I forgot to ask you, Sergei Ivanovich ... This is the last, now ... Is there a God or no?"

Platonov knit his eyebrows.

"What answer can I make? I don't know. I think that there is, but not such as we imagine Him. He is more wise, more just..."

"And future life? There, after death? Is there, now, as they tell us, a paradise or hell? Is that the truth? Or is there just nothing at all? A barren void? A sleep without a dream? A dark basement?"

Platonov kept silent, trying not to look at Jennka. He felt oppressed and frightened.

"I don't know," said he, finally, with an effort. "I don't want to lie to you."

Jennka sighed, and smiled with a pitiful, twisted smile.

"Well, thanks, my dear. And thanks for even that much ... I wish you happiness. With all my soul. Well, good-bye..."

She turned away from him and began slowly, with a wavering walk, to climb up the hill.

Platonov returned to work just in the nick of time. The gathering of tramps, scratching, yawning, working out their accustomed dislocations, were getting into their places. Zavorotny, at a distance, with his keen eyes caught sight of Platonov and began to yell over the whole port:

"You did manage to get here in time, you round-shouldered devil ... But I was already wanting to take you by the tail and chase you out of the gang ... Well, get in your place! ..."

"Well, but I did get a he-dog in you, Serejka! ..." he added, in a kindly manner. "If only it was night; but no,—look you, he starts in playing ring-around-a-rosie in broad daylight..."



CHAPTER V.

Saturday was the customary day of the doctor's inspection, for which they prepared very carefully and with quaking in all the houses; as, however, even society ladies prepare themselves, when getting ready for a visit to a physician-specialist; they diligently made their intimate toilet and inevitably put on clean underthings, even as dressy as possible. The windows toward the street were closed with shutters, while at one of those windows, which gave out upon the yard, was put a table with a hard bolster to put under the back.

All the girls were agitated ... "And what if there's a disease, which I haven't noticed myself? ... And then the despatch to a hospital; disgrace; the tedium of hospital life; bad food; the hard course of treatment..."

Only Big Manka—or otherwise Manka the Crocodile—Zoe, and Henrietta—all thirty years old, and, therefore, in the reckoning of Yama, already old prostitutes, who had seen everything, had grown inured to everything, grown indifferent to their trade, like white, fat circus horses—remained imperturbably calm. Manka the Crocodile even often said of herself:

"I have gone through fire and water and pipes of brass ... Nothing will stick to me any more."

Jennka, since morning, was meek and pensive. She presented to Little White Manka a golden bracelet; a medallion upon a thin little chain with her photograph; and a silver neck crucifix. Tamara she moved through entreaty into taking two rings for remembrance: one of silver, in three hoops, that could be moved apart, with a heart in the middle, and under it two hands that clasped one another when all the three parts of the ring were joined; while the other was of thin gold wire with an almandine.

"As for my underwear, Tamarochka—you give it to Annushka, the chambermaid. Let her wash it out well and wear it in good health, in memory of me."

The two of them were sitting in Tamara's room. Jennka had in the very morning sent after cognac; and now slowly, as though lazily, was imbibing wine-glass after wine-glass, eating lemon and a piece of sugar after drinking. Tamara was observing this for the first time and wondered, because Jennka had always disliked wine, and drank very rarely; and then only at the constraint of guests.

"What are you giving stuff away so to-day?" asked Tamara. "Just as though you'd gotten ready to die, or to go into a convent?"

"Yes, and I will go away," answered Jennka listlessly. "I am weary, Tamarochka! ..."

"Well, which one of us has a good time?"

"Well, no! ... It isn't so much that I'm weary; but somehow everything—everything is all the same ... I look at you, at the table, at the bottle; at my hands and feet; and I'm thinking, that all this is alike and everything is to no purpose ... There's no sense in anything ... Just like on some old, old picture. Look there—there's a soldier walking on the street, but it's all one to me, as though they had wound up a doll, and it's moving ... And that he's wet under the ram, is also all one to me ... And that he'll die, and I'll die, and you, Tamara, will die—in this also I see nothing frightful, nothing amazing... So simple and wearisome is everything to me..."

Jennka was silent for a while; drank one more wine-glass; sucked the sugar, and, still looking out at the street, suddenly asked:

"Tell me, please, Tamara, I've never asked you about it—from where did you get in here, into the house? You don't at all resemble all of us; you know everything; for everything that turns up you have a good, clever remark ... Even French, now—how well you spoke it that time! But none of us knows anything at all about you ... Who are you?"

"Darling Jennechka, really, it's not worth while ... A life like any life ... I went to boarding school; was a governess; sang in a choir; then kept a shooting gallery in a summer garden; and then got mixed up with a certain charlatan and taught myself to shoot with a Winchester ... I traveled with circuses—I represented an American Amazon. I used to shoot splendidly ... Then I found myself in a monastery. There I passed two years ... I've been through a lot ... Can't recall everything ... I used to steal..."

"You've lived through a great deal ... Checkered-like."

"But then, my years are not a few. Well, what do you think—how many?"

"Twenty-two, twenty-four? ..."

"No, my angel! It just struck thirty-two a week ago. I, if you like, am older than all of you here in Anna Markovna's. Only I didn't wonder at anything, didn't take anything near to heart. As you see, I never drink ... I occupy myself very carefully with the care of my body; and the main thing, the very main thing—I don't allow myself ever to be carried away with men..."

"Well, but what about your Senka? ..."

"Senka—that's a horse of another colour; the heart of woman is foolish, inconsistent ... Can it possibly live without love? And even so, I don't love him, but just so ... a self-deception ... But, however, I shall be in very great need of Senka soon."

Jennka suddenly grew animated and looked at her friend with curiosity.

"But how did you come to get stuck right here, in this hole? So clever, handsome, sociable..."

"I'd have to take a long time in telling it ... And then I'm too lazy ... I got in here out of love; I got mixed up with a certain young man and went into a revolution with him. For we always act so, we women: where the dearie is looking, there we also look; what the dearie sees, that we also see ... I didn't believe at soul in his work, but I went. A flattering man he was; smart, a good talker, a good looker ... Only he proved to be a skunk and a traitor afterwards. He played at revolution; while he himself gave his comrades away to the gendarmes. A stool-pigeon, he was. When they had killed and shown him up, then all the foolishness left me. However, it was necessary to conceal myself ... I changed my passport. Then they advised me, that the easiest thing of all was to screen myself with a yellow ticket ... And then the fun began! ... And even here I'm on a sort of pasture ground; when the time comes, the successful moment arrives—I'll go away!"

"Where?" asked Jennie with impatience.

"The world is large ... And I love life! ... There, now, I was the same way in the convent: I lived on and I lived on; sang antiphonies and dulias, until I had rested up, and had finally grown weary of it; and then all at once—hop! and into a cabaret ... Wasn't that some jump? The same way out of here ... I'll get into a theatre, into a circus, into a corps de ballet ... but do you know, Jennechka, I'm drawn to the thieving trade the most, after all ... Daring, dangerous, hard, and somehow intoxicating ... It's drawing me! ... Don't you mind that I'm so respectable and modest, and can appear an educated young lady. I'm entirely, entirely different."

Her eyes suddenly blazed up, vividly and gaily.

"There's a devil dwells in me!"

"It's all very well for you," pensively and with weariness pronounced Jennie. "You at least desire something, but my soul is some sort of carrion ... I'm twenty-five years old, now; but my soul is like that of an old woman, shrivelled up, smelling of the earth ... And if I had only lived sensibly! ... Ugh! ... There was only some sort of slush."

"Drop it, Jennka; you're talking foolishly. You're smart, you're original; you have that special power before which men crawl and creep so willingly. You go away from here, too. Not with me, of course—I'm always single—but go away all by your own self."

Jennka shook her head and quietly, without tears, hid her face in her palms.

"No," she responded dully, after a long silence, "no, this won't work out with me: fate has chewed me all up! ... I'm not a human being any more, but some sort of dirty cud ... Eh!" she suddenly made a gesture of despair. 'Let's better drink some cognac, Jennechka,'" she addressed herself, "'and let's suck the lemon a little! ...' Brr ... what nasty stuff! ... And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff? If you smear a dog's wool with it, it will fall off ... And always, the low-down thing, she'll take an extra half. Once I somehow ask her—'What are you hoarding money for?' 'Well, I,' she says, 'am saving it up for a wedding. What sort,' she says, 'of joy will it be for my husband, that I'll offer him up my innocence alone! I must earn a few hundreds in addition.' She's happy! ... I have here, Tamara, a little money in the little box under the mirror; you pass it on to her, please..."

"And what are you about, you fool; do you want to die, or what?" sharply, with reproach, said Tamara.

"No, I'm saying it just so, if anything happens ... Take it, now, take the money! Maybe they'll take me off to the hospital ... And how do you know what's going to take place there? I left myself some small change, if anything happens ... And supposing that I wanted to do something to myself in downright earnest, Tamarochka—is it possible that you'd interfere with me?"

Tamara looked at her fixedly, deeply, and calmly. Jennie's eyes were sad, and as though vacant. The living fire had become extinguished in them, and they seemed turbid, just as though faded, with whites like moonstone.

"No," Tamara said at last, quietly but firmly. "If it was on account of love, I'd interfere; if it was on account of money, I'd talk you out of it: but there are cases where one must not interfere. I wouldn't help, of course; but I also wouldn't seize you and interfere with you."

At this moment the quick-limbed housekeeper Zociya whirled through the corridor with an outcry:

"Ladies, get dressed! The doctor has arrived ... Ladies, get dressed! ... Lively, ladies! ..."

"Well, go on, Tamara, go on," said Jennka tenderly, getting up. "I'll run into my room for just a minute—I haven't changed my dress yet, although, to tell the truth, this also is all one. When they'll be calling out for me, and I don't come in time, call out, run in after me."

And, going out of Tamara's room, she embraced her by the shoulder, as though by chance, and stroked it tenderly.

Doctor Klimenko—the official city doctor—was preparing in the parlor everything indispensable for an inspection—vaseline, a solution of sublimate, and other things—and was placing them on a separate little table. Here also were arranged for him the white blanks of the girls, replacing their passports, as well as a general alphabetical list. The girls, dressed only in their chemises, stockings, and slippers, were standing and sitting at a distance. Nearer the table was standing the proprietress herself—Anna Markovna—while a little behind her were Emma Edwardovna and Zociya.

The doctor—aged, disheartened, slovenly; a man indifferent to everything—put the pince-nez crookedly upon his nose, looked at the list, and called out:

"Alexandra Budzinskaya! ..."

The frowning, little, pug-nosed Nina stepped out. Preserving on her face an angry expression, and breathing heavily from shame, from the consciousness of her own awkwardness, and from the exertions, she clumsily climbed up on the table. The doctor, squinting through his pince-nez and dropping it every minute, carried out the inspection.

"Go ahead! ... You're sound."

And on the reverse side of the blank he marked off: "Twenty-eighth of August. Sound" and put down a curly-cue. And when he had not even finished writing called out:

"Voshchenkova, Irene! ..."

Now it was the turn of Liubka. She, during the past month and a half of comparative freedom, had had time to grow unaccustomed to the inspections of every week; and when the doctor turned up the chemise over her breast, she suddenly turned as red as only very bashful women can—even with her back and breast.

After her was the turn of Zoe; then of Little White Manka; after that of Tamara and Niurka—the last, the doctor found, had gonorrhoea, and ordered her to be sent off to a hospital.

The doctor carried out the inspection with amazing rapidity. It was now nearly twenty years that every week, on Saturdays, he had to inspect in such a manner several hundred girls; and he had worked out that habitual technical dexterity and rapidity, a calm carelessness of movements, which is; frequently to be found in circus artists, in card sharpers, in furniture movers and packers, and in other professionals. And he carried out his manipulations with the same calmness with which a drover or a veterinary inspects several hundred head of cattle in a day.

Did he ever think that before him were living people; or that he appeared as the last and most important link of that fearful chain which is called legalized prostitution?

No! And even if he did experience this, then it must have been in the very beginning of his career. Now before him were only naked abdomens, naked backs, and opened mouths. Not one exemplar of all this faceless herd of every Saturday would he have recognized subsequently on the street. The main thing was the necessity of finishing as soon as possible the inspection in one establishment, in order to pass on to another, to a third, a ninth, a twentieth...

"Susannah Raitzina!" the doctor finally called out.

No one walked up to the table.

All the inmates of the house began to exchange glances and to whisper.

"Jennka ... Where's Jennka? ..."

But she was not among the girls.

Then Tamara, just released by the doctor, moved a little forward and said:

"She isn't here. She hasn't had a chance to get herself ready yet. Excuse me, Mr. Doctor, I'll go right away and call her."

She ran into the corridor and did not return for a long time. After her went, at first Emma Edwardovna, then Zociya, several girls, and even Anna Markovna herself.

"PFUI! What indecency is this! ..." the majestic Emma Edwardovna was saying in the corridor, making an indignant face. "And eternally this Jennka! ... Always this Jennka! ... It seems my patience has already burst ..."

But Jennka was nowhere—neither in her room, nor in Tamara's. They looked into other chambers, in all the out-of-the-way corners ... But she did not prove to be even there.

"We must look in the water-closet ... Perhaps she's there?" surmised Zoe.

But this institution was locked from the inside with a bolt. Emma Edwardovna knocked on the door with her fist.

"Jennie, do come out at last! What foolishness is this?"

And, raising her voice, she cried out impatiently and threateningly:

"Do you hear, you swine? ... Come out this minute—the doctor's waiting!"

But there was no answer of any sort.

All exchanged glances with fear in their eyes, with one and the same thought in mind.

Emma Edwardovna shook the door by the brass knob, but the door did not yield.

"Go after Simeon!" Anna Markovna directed.

Simeon was called ... He came, sleepy and morose, as was his wont. By the distracted faces of the girls and the housekeepers, he already saw that some misunderstanding or other had occurred, in which his professional cruelty and strength were required. When they explained to him what the matter was, he silently took the door-knob with both hands, braced himself against the wall, and gave a yank.

The knob remained in his hands; and he himself, staggering backward, almost fell to the floor on his back.

"A-a, hell!" he began to growl in a stifled voice. "Give me a table knife."

Through the crack of the door he felt the inner bolt with the table knife; whittled away with the blade the edges of the crack, and widened it so that he could at last push the end of the knife through it, and began gradually to scrape back the bolt. Only the grating of metal against metal could be heard.

Finally Simeon threw the door wide open.

Jennka was hanging in the middle of the water-closet on a tape from her corset, fastened to the lamphook. Her body, already motionless after an unprolonged agony, was slowly swinging in the air, and describing scarcely perceptible turns to the right and left around its vertical axis. Her face was bluishly-purple, and the tip of the tongue was thrust out between clenched and bared teeth. The lamp which had been taken off was also here, sprawling on the floor.

Some one began to squeal hysterically, and all the girls, like a stampeded herd, crowding and jostling each other in the narrow corridor, vociferating and choking with hysterical sobbings, started in to run.

The doctor came upon hearing the outcries... Came, precisely, and not ran. Seeing what the matter was, he did not become amazed or excited; during his practice as an official city doctor, he had had his fill of seeing such things, so that he had already grown benumbed and hardened to human sufferings, wounds and death. He ordered Simeon to lift the corpse of Jennka a bit upward, and himself getting up on the seat, cut through the tape. Proforma, he ordered Jennka's body to be borne away into the room that had been hers, and tried with the help of the same Simeon to produce artificial respiration; but after five minutes gave it up as a bad job, fixed the pince-nez, which had become crooked, on his nose, and said:

"Call the police in to make a protocol."

Again Kerbesh came, again whispered for a long time with the proprietress in her little bit of a cabinet, and again crunched in his pocket a new hundred-rouble bill.

The protocol was made in five minutes; and Jennka, just as half-naked as she had hung herself, was carted away in a hired wagon into an anatomical theatre, wrapped up in and covered with two straw mats.

Emma Edwardovna was the first to find the note that Jennka had left on her night table. On a sheet, torn out of the income-expense book, compulsory for every prostitute, in pencil, in a naive, rounded, childish handwriting—by which, however, it could be judged that the hands of the suicide had not trembled during the last minutes—was written:

"I beg that no one be blamed for my death. I am dying because I have become infected, and also because all people are scoundrels and it is very disgusting to live. How to divide my things—Tamara knows about that. I told her in detail."

Emma Edwardovna turned around upon Tamara, who was right on the spot among a number of other girls, and with eyes filled with a cold, green hatred, hissed out:

"Then you knew, you low-down thing, what she was preparing to do? ... You knew, you vermin? ... You knew and didn't tell? ..."

She already had swung back, in order, as was her wont, to hit Tamara cruelly and calculatingly; but suddenly stopped just as she was, with gaping mouth and with eyes wide open. It was just as though she was seeing, for the first time, Tamara, who was looking at her with a firm, wrathful, unbearable gaze, and slowly, slowly was raising from below, and at last brought up to the level of the housekeeper's face, a small object, glistening with white metal.



CHAPTER VI.

That very same day, at evening, a very important event took place in the house of Anna Markovna: the whole institution—with land and house, with live and inanimate stock—passed into the hands of Emma Edwardovna.

They had been speaking of this, on and off, for a long time in the establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately right after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses could not for a long time come to themselves for amazement and fear. They knew well, having experienced the sway of the German upon themselves, her cruel, implacable pedantism; her greed, arrogance, and, finally, her perverted, exacting, repulsive love, now for one, now for another favorite. Besides that, it was no mystery to any one, that out of the fifteen thousand which Emma Edwardovna had to pay the former proprietress for the firm and for the property, one third belonged to Kerbesh, who had, for a long time already, been carrying on half-friendly, half-business relations with the fat housekeeper. From the union of two such people, shameless, pitiless, and covetous, the girls could expect all sorts of disasters for themselves.

Anna Markovna had to let the house go so cheaply not simply because Kerbesh, even if he had not known about certain shady little transactions to her credit, could still at any time he liked trip her up and eat her up without leaving anything. Of pretexts and cavils for this even a hundred could be found every day; and certain ones of them not merely threatened the shutting down of the house alone, but, if you like, even with the court.

But, dissembling, oh-ing and sighing, bewailing her poverty, her maladies and orphanhood, Anna Markovna at soul was glad of even such a settlement. And then it must be said: she was already for a long time feeling the approach of senile infirmity, together with all sorts of ailments and the thirst for complete, benevolent rest, undisturbed by anything. All, of which she had not even dared dream in her early youth, when she herself had yet been a prostitute of the rank and file—all had now come to her of itself, one in addition to the other: peaceful old age, a house—a brimming cup on one of the quiet, cozy streets, almost in the centre of the city,—the adored daughter Birdie, who—if not to-day then tomorrow—must marry a respected man, an engineer, a house-owner, and member of the city-council; provided for as she was with a respectable dowry and magnificent valuables ... Now it was possible peacefully, without hurrying, with gusto, to dine and sup on sweet things, for which Anna Markovna had always nourished a great weakness; to drink after dinner good, home-made, strong cherry-brandy; and of evenings to play a bit at "preference," for kopeck stakes, with esteemed elderly ladies of her acquaintance, who, even although they never as much as let it appear that they knew the real trade of the little old woman, did in reality know it very well; and not only did not condemn her business but even bore themselves with respect toward those enormous percentages which she earned upon her capital. And these charming friends, the joy and consolation of an untroubled old age, were: one—the keeper of a loan office; another—the proprietress of a lively hotel near the railroad; the third—the owner of a jewelry shop, not large, but all the go and well known among the big thieves, &c. And about them, in her turn, Anna Markovna knew and could tell several shady and not especially flattering anecdotes; but in their society it was not customary to talk of the sources of the family well-being—only cleverness, daring, success, and decent manners were esteemed.

But, even besides that, Anna Markovna, sufficiently limited in mind and not especially developed, had some sort of an amazing inner intuition, which during all her life permitted her instinctively but irreproachably to avoid unpleasantnesses, and to find prudent paths in time. And so now, after the sudden death of Roly-Poly, and the suicide of Jennka which followed the next day, she, with her unconsciously—penetrating soul foreguessed that fate—which had been favouring her house of ill-fame, sending her good fortunes, turning away all under-water shoals—was now getting ready to turn its back upon her. And she was the first to retreat.

They say, that not long before a fire in a house, or before the wreck of a ship, the wise, nervous rats in droves make their way into another place. And Anna Markovna was directed by the same rat-like, animal, prophetic intuition. And she was right: immediately right after the death of Jennka some fearful curse seemed to hang over the house, formerly Anna Markovna Shaibes', but now Emma Edwardovna Titzner's: deaths, misfortunes, scandals just simply descended upon it ceaselessly, becoming constantly more frequent, on the manner of bloody events in Shakespeare's tragedies; as, however, was the case at all the remaining houses of the Yamas as well.

And one of the first to die, a week after the liquidation of the business, was Anna Markovna herself. However, this frequently happens with people put out of their accustomed rut of thirty years: so die war heroes, who have gone into retirement—people of insuperable health and iron will; so quickly go off the stage former stock brokers, who have happily gone away to rest, but have been deprived of the burning allurement of risk and hazard; so, too, age rapidly, droop, and grow decrepit, the great artists who leave the stage ... Her death was the death of the just. Once at a game of cards she felt herself unwell; begged them to wait a while for her; said that she would lie down for just a minute; lay down in the bedroom on a bed; sighed deeply, and passed on into another world—with a calm face, with a peaceful, senile smile upon her lips. Isaiah Savvich—her faithful comrade on the path of life, a trifle downtrodden, who had always played a secondary, subordinate role—survived her only a month.

Birdie was left sole heiress. She very successfully turned the cozy house into money, as well as the land somewheres at the edge of the town; married, as it had been presupposed, very happily; and up to this time is convinced that her father carried on a great commercial business in the export of wheat through Odessa and Novorossiysk into Asia Minor.

On the evening of the day when Jennie's corpse had been carried away to an anatomical theatre; at an hour when not even a chance guest appears on Yamskaya Street, all the girls, at the insistence of Emma Edwardovna, assembled in the drawing room. Not one of them dared murmur against the fact that on this distressing day, when they had not yet recovered from the impression of Jennka's horrible death, they would be compelled to dress up, as usual, in wildly festive finery, and to go into the brightly illuminated drawing room, in order to dance, sing, and to entice lecherous men with their denuded bodies.

And at last into the drawing room walked Emma Edwardovna herself. She was more majestic than she had ever been—clad in a black silk gown, from which, just like battlements, her enormous breasts jutted out, upon which descended two fat chins; in black silk mittens; with an enormous gold chain wound thrice around her neck, and terminating in a ponderous medallion hanging upon the very abdomen.

"Ladies! ..." she began impressively, "I must ... Stand up!" she suddenly called out commandingly. "When I speak, you must hear me out standing."

They all exchanged glances with perplexity: such an order was a novelty in the establishment. However, the girls got up one after another, irresolutely, with eyes and mouths gasping.

"Sie sollen ... you must from this day show me that respect which you are bound to show to your mistress," importantly and weightily began Emma Edwardovna. "Beginning from to-day, the establishment in a legal manner has passed from our good and respected Anna Markovna to me, Emma Edwardovna Titzner. I hope that we will not quarrel, and that you will behave yourselves like sensible, obedient, and well-brought-up girls. I will be to you like in place of your own mother, but only remember, that I will not stand for laziness, or drunkenness, or notions of any sort; or any kind of disorder. The kind Madam Shaibes, it must be said, held you in too loose reins. O—o, I will be far more strict. Discipline uber alles ... before everything. It's a great pity, that the Russian people are lazy, dirty and stoopid, do not understand this rule; but don't you trouble yourself, I will teach you this for your own good. I say 'for your own good,' because my main thought is to kill the competition of Treppel. I want that my client should be a man of substance, and not some charlatan and ragamuffin, some kind of student, now, or ham actor. I want that my ladies should be the most beautiful, best brought-up, the healthiest and gayest in the whole city. I won't spare any money in order to set up swell furnishings; and you will have rooms with silk furniture and with genuine, beautiful rugs. Your guests will no longer be demanding beer, but only genteel Bordeaux and Burgundy wines and champagne. Remember, that a rich, substantial, elderly man never likes your common, ordinary, coarse love. He requires Cayenne pepper; he requires not a trade, but an art, and you will soon acquire this. At Treppel's they take three roubles for a visit and ten roubles for a night ... I will establish it so, that you will receive five roubles for a visit and twenty-five for a night. They will present you with gold and diamonds. I will contrive it so, that you won't have to pass on into establishments of a lower sort, und so weiter ... right down to the soldiers' filthy den. No! Deposits will be put away and saved with me for each one of you every month; and will be put away in your name in a banker's office, where there will increase interest upon them, and interest upon interest. And then, if a girl feels herself tired, or wants to marry a respectable man, there will always be at her disposal not a large, but a sure capital. So is it done in the best establishments in Riga, and everywhere abroad. Let no one say about me, that Emma Edwardovna is a spider, a vixen, a cupping glass. But for disobedience, for laziness, for notions, for lovers on the side, I will punish cruelly and, like nasty weeds, will throw out—on the street, or still worse. Now I have said all that I had to. Nina, come near me. And all the rest of you come up in turn."

Ninka irresolutely walked right up to Emma Edwardovna—and even staggered back in amazement: Emma Edwardovna was extending her right hand to her, with the fingers lowered downward, and slowly nearing it to Ninka's lips.

"Kiss it! ..." impressively and firmly pronounced Emma Edwardovna, narrowing her eyes and with head thrown back, in the magnificent pose of a princess ascending her throne.

Ninka was so bewildered that her right arm gave a jerk in order to make the sign of the cross; but she corrected herself, loudly smacked the extended hand, and stepped aside. Following her Zoe, Henrietta, Vanda and others stepped up also. Tamara alone continued to stand near the wall with her back to the mirror; that mirror into which Jennka so loved to gaze, in gone-by times, admiring herself as she walked back and forth through the drawing room.

Emma Edwardovna let the imperious, obstinate gaze of a boa-constrictor rest upon her; but the hypnosis did not work. Tamara bore this gaze without turning away, without flinching; but without any expression on her face. Then the new proprietress put down her hand, produced on her face something resembling a smile, and said hoarsely:

"And with you, Tamara, I must have a little talk separately, eye to eye. Let's go!"

"I hear you, Emma Edwardovna!" calmly answered Tamara.

Emma Edwardovna came to the little bit of a cabinet, where formerly Anna Markovna loved to drink coffee with clotted cream; sat down on the divan and pointed out a place opposite her to Tamara. For some time the women kept silent; searchingly, mistrustfully eyeing each other.

"You acted rightly, Tamara," said Emma Edwardovna finally. "You did wisely in not stepping up, on the manner of those sheep, to kiss my hand. But just the same, I would not have let you come to that. I wanted right there, in the presence of all, when you walked up to me, to press your hand and to offer you the place of first housekeeper—you understand?—my chief assistant—and on terms very advantageous to you..."