“Why don’t you go away from here if you are dull?”
“Where should I go to? Go begging or what?”
“Begging would be easier than living here.”
“How do you know that? Have you begged?”
“Yes, when I hadn’t the money to study. Even if I hadn’t anyone could understand that. A beggar is anyway a free man, and you are a slave.”
The dark woman stretched, and watched with sleepy eyes the footman who was bringing a trayful of glasses and seltzer water.
“Stand me a glass of porter,” she said, and yawned again.
“Porter,” thought Vassilyev. “And what if your brother or mother walked in at this moment? What would you say? And what would they say? There would be porter then, I imagine....”
All at once there was the sound of weeping. From the adjoining room, from which the footman had brought the seltzer water, a fair man with a red face and angry eyes ran in quickly. He was followed by the tall, stout “madam,” who was shouting in a shrill voice:
“Nobody has given you leave to slap girls on the cheeks! We have visitors better than you, and they don’t fight! Impostor!”