“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?”