Moshkin asked: “What does she do? Does she run a business of some sort? A school? Or a journal?”
No. Madame Engelhardova had neither a school, nor a journal.
“She lives on her capital,” explained the porter.
Madame Engelhardova’s maid, who looked like a village girl, led him into the drawing-room, to the right of the dark ante-room, and asked him to wait.
He waited. It was tedious and annoying. He began to examine the contents of the elaborately furnished room. There were arm-chairs, tables, stools, folding screens, fire-screens, book-shelves, and small columns upon which rested busts, lamps, and artistic gew-gaws; there were mirrors, lithographs, and clocks on the walls; while the windows were decorated with hangings and flowers. All these made the room crowded, oppressive and dark. Moshkin paced through this depression over the rugs. He looked at the pictures and the statues with hate.
“I’d like to chuck all this to the devil! To all the devils!”
But when the mistress of the house walked in suddenly he lowered his eyes, and hid his glimmer of hunger.
She was young, pink, and tall and quite good-looking. She walked quickly and with decision, like the mistress of a village house, and swung, not altogether gracefully, her strong, handsome white arms bared from above the elbows.
She came to him and held out her hand, a little high—to be pressed, or to be kissed, as he chose. He kissed it. There was spite in his kiss. He did it with a quick, resounding smack, and one of his teeth scratched her skin slightly, so that she winced. But she said nothing. She walked toward the divan, got behind the table and sat down. She showed him an armchair.
When he had seated himself, she asked him: “Was that your announcement in yesterday’s paper?”