“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?”