She answered that he was a visitor.
I asked her who she was.
She replied that she was a peasant girl from the county of Moscow.
“What is your occupation?” She laughed, and made no answer.
“What do you do for your living?” I repeated, thinking she had not understood the question.
“I sit in the inn,” she said.
I did not understand her, and asked again,—
“What are your means of living?”
She gave me no answer, but continued to giggle. In the fourth room, where we had not yet been, I heard the voices of women also giggling.
The landlord came out of his room, and approached us. He had evidently heard my questions and the woman's answers. He glanced sternly at her, and, turning to me, said, “She is a prostitute”; and it was evident that he was pleased that he knew this word,—which is the one used in official circles,—and at having pronounced it correctly. And having said this with a respectful smile of satisfaction towards me, he turned to the woman. As he did so, the expression of his face changed. In a peculiarly contemptuous manner, and with rapid utterance as one would speak to a dog, he said, without looking at her, “Don't be a fool! instead of saying you sit in the inn, speak plainly, and say you are a prostitute.—She does not even yet know her proper name,” he said, turning to me.