‘Ah! what do you think of all that? Just think what scoundrels these students are, Clotilduchka! I never liked them.’
At last, stirred to her very depths by her lover, she hung on his neck and began to kiss him loudly.
‘Leonichka, my darling! It’s terrible to listen to, even! And you aren’t frightened of anything!’
He complacently twisted his left moustache upwards, and let drop carelessly: ‘Why be afraid? You can only die once. That’s what I’m paid for.’
Clotilde was tormented all the while by jealous envy of her friend’s magnificent lover. She vaguely suspected that there was a great deal of lying in Leonka’s stories; while she now had something utterly extraordinary in her hands, such as no one had ever had before, something that would immediately take all the shine out of Leonka’s exploits. For some minutes she hesitated. A faint echo of the tender pity for Ribnikov still restrained her. But a hysterical yearning to shine took hold of her, and she said in a dull, quiet voice: ‘Do you know what I wanted to tell you, Leonya? I’ve got such a queer visitor to-day.’
‘H’m. You think he’s a sharper?’ he asked condescendingly. Genka was offended.
‘A sharper, you say! That’s your story. Some drunken officer.’
‘No, you mustn’t say that,’ Leonka pompously interrupted. ‘It happens that sharpers get themselves up as officers. What was it you were going to say, Clotilde?’
Then she told the story of Ribnikov with every detail, displaying a petty and utterly feminine talent for observation: she told how they called him General Kuroki, his Japanese face, his strange tenderness and passion, his delirium, and finally now he said ‘Banzai!’
‘You’re not lying?’ Leonka said quickly. Keen points of fire lit in his eyes.