“Eh bien, que feras-tu si je te prends avec moi? First of all I must have fifty thousand francs, and you shall give them to me at Frankfurt. Then we will go on to Paris, where we will live together, et je te ferai voir des étoiles en plein jour. Yes, you shall see such women as your eyes have never lit upon.”
“Stop a moment. If I were to give you those fifty thousand francs, what should I have left for myself?”
“Another hundred thousand francs, please to remember. Besides, I could live with you in your rooms for a month, or even for two; or even for longer. But it would not take us more than two months to get through fifty thousand francs; for, look you, je suis bonne enfante, et tu verras des étoiles, you may be sure.”
“What? You mean to say that we should spend the whole in two months?”
“Certainly. Does that surprise you very much? Ah, vil esclave! Why, one month of that life would be better than all your previous existence. One month—et après, le déluge! Mais tu ne peux comprendre. Va! Away, away! You are not worth it.—Ah, que fais-tu?”
For, while drawing on the other stocking, I had felt constrained to kiss her. Immediately she shrunk back, kicked me in the face with her toes, and turned me neck and crop out of the room.
“Eh bien, mon ‘utchitel’,” she called after me, “je t’attends, si tu veux. I start in a quarter of an hour’s time.”
I returned to my own room with my head in a whirl. It was not my fault that Polina had thrown a packet in my face, and preferred Mr. Astley to myself. A few bank-notes were still fluttering about the floor, and I picked them up. At that moment the door opened, and the landlord appeared—a person who, until now, had never bestowed upon me so much as a glance. He had come to know if I would prefer to move to a lower floor—to a suite which had just been tenanted by Count V.
For a moment I reflected.
“No!” I shouted. “My account, please, for in ten minutes I shall be gone.”