“Oh, I love them just so. You’re nice, too.”
The German meditated for a few seconds, pensively sipping away at his beer. Then he said that which every man tells a prostitute in these moments preceding the casual possession of her body:
“Do you know, Marichen, you also please me very much. I would willingly take you and set you up.”
“You’re married,” the girl objected, touching his ring.
“Yes, but, you understand, I don’t live with my wife; she isn’t well, she can’t fulfill her conjugal duties.”
“The poor thing! If she were to find out where you go, daddy, she would cry for sure.”
“Let’s drop that. So, you know, Mary, I am always looking out for such a girl as you for myself, so modest and pretty. I am a man of means, I would find a flat with board for you, with fuel and light. And forty roubles a month pin money. Would you go?”
“Why not go—I’d go.”
He kissed her violently, but a secret apprehension glided swiftly through his cowardly heart.
“But are you healthy?” he asked in an inimical, quavering voice.