"Rather! She's a fabulous beauty!" said Grushina. "She may be a little constrained now, but just wait, she'll get used to things and show her true colours. She'll turn plenty of heads in the town. And just think how shrewd they've been: as soon as I found out about this I tried to meet his landlady, or perhaps I should say her landlady."
"It's a topsy-turvy affair. Pah! God help us!" said Varvara.
"I went to Vespers at the parish church on St. Pantelemon's day. She's very pious. 'Olga Vassilyevna,' I say to her, 'why do you keep only one student in your house now?' 'It seems to me,' I say to her, 'that one is not enough for you.' And she says, 'Why should I have any more? They're a great trouble.' And so I say, 'Why, in past years you used to have two or three.' And then she says—just imagine, Varvara darling—'They stipulated that Sashenka alone should live in my house. They are well-to-do people,' she says to me, 'and they pay me a little more, as if they were afraid that the other boys would do him harm.' Now what do you think of that?"
"Aren't they sly blighters," said Varvara indignantly. "Well, did you tell her that he was a wench?"
"I said to her: 'Olga Vassilyevna, are you sure they haven't foisted a girl upon you instead of a boy?'"
"Well, and what did she say?"
"She thought at first that I was joking, and she laughs. Then I say to her more seriously, 'My dear Olga Vassilyevna,' I say, 'd'you know they say that this is a girl?' But she wouldn't believe me. 'Nonsense,' she says, 'who put that into your head? I'm not blind.'"
This tale left Varvara dumbfounded. She believed the whole story just as she heard it, and she believed that an assault from yet another side was being prepared for her intended husband. She must somehow have the mask torn off this disguised girl as quickly as possible. For a long time they deliberated as to how this was to be done, but so far they could not think of any way.
When Varvara got home her annoyance was further increased by the disappearance of the raisins.
When Peredonov returned Varvara quickly and agitatedly told him that Klavdia had hidden away somewhere the pound of raisins and would not admit it.