Then Tioka would begin to cry. “I feel as if we were lost, as if we were lost!...” And I knew not how to comfort him.
One day—we were at Moscow, I remember—there appeared to me for the first time that lean and threatening wolf which is called—Poverty. Poverty! I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave charity to; that was all.
Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?
During all my life I had never given a thought to money.
XX
“Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer. Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile.”
“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he would like to be paid.”
“Well, let us pay him then.”
“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is twenty-five thousand rubles.”