It came in the morning while Moshkin was drinking his tea. The landlady brought it in herself. There was a glitter in her dark, snake-like eyes as she remarked tauntingly:
“Here’s some correspondence for Mr. Sergei Matveyevich Moshkin.”
And while he was reading she smoothed her black hair down her triangular yellow forehead, and hissed: “What’s the good of getting letters? Much better if you paid for your board and lodging. A letter won’t feed your hunger; you ought to go among people, look for a job and not expect things to come to you.”
He read:
“Be so good as to come in for a talk, between 6 and 7 in the evening, at Row 6, House 78, Apartment 57.”
There was no signature.
Moshkin glanced angrily at his landlady. She was broad and erect, and as she stood there at the door quite calm, with lowered arms, she was like a doll; she seemed deliberately malicious, and she looked at him with her motionless, anger-provoking eyes.
Moshkin exclaimed: “Basta!”
He hit the table with his fist. Then he rose, and paced up and down the room. He kept on repeating: “Basta!”
The landlady asked quietly and spitefully: “Are you going to pay or not, you Kazan and Astrakhan correspondent, you impudent face?”