“Do you know,” said Belétski, “if one were to dress Ústenka up and clean and polish her up a bit, she’d be better than all our beauties. Have you ever seen that Cossack woman who married a colonel; she was charming! Bórsheva? What dignity! Where do they get it...”
“I have not seen Bórsheva, but I think nothing could be better than the costume they wear here.”
“Ah, I’m first-rate at fitting into any kind of life,” said Belétski with a sigh of pleasure. “I’ll go and see what they are up to.”
He threw his dressing-gown over his shoulders and ran out, shouting, “And you look after the ‘refreshments’.”
Olénin sent Belétski’s orderly to buy spice-bread and honey; but it suddenly seemed to him so disgusting to give money (as if he were bribing someone) that he gave no definite reply to the orderly’s question: “How much spice-bread with peppermint, and how much with honey?”
“Just as you please.”
“Shall I spend all the money,” asked the old soldier impressively. “The peppermint is dearer. It’s sixteen kopeks.”
“Yes, yes, spend it all,” answered Olénin and sat down by the window, surprised that his heart was thumping as if he were preparing himself for something serious and wicked.
He heard screaming and shrieking in the girls’ hut when Belétski went there, and a few moments later saw how he jumped out and ran down the steps, accompanied by shrieks, bustle, and laughter.
“Turned out,” he said.