The little half-starved girl with the merry, roguish eyes, although the wind threatens to upset her every minute, smiles at me from out the picture:
There, you see, we have our pleasures, too!
As to that lady, I am laughing at her!
On paying for my unfinished glass of tea, however, I am again reminded of my little beggar boy.
He has no umbrella at all, no home awaits him, not even one with dry potatoes without butter, no little bit of a bed at the foot of father's or mother's.
Even the unhappy lady would not find anything to envy him for.
What made me think of him again? Aha, I remember! It flashed across me that for the ten kopeks which I paid for the scarcely-tasted tea, the poor little boy would have had a half-portion of soup or a piece of bread and a corner to sleep in. Why did I order the tea? At home the samovar is steaming, somebody sits waiting for me with a "ready" smile, on the table there is something to eat.
I was ashamed not to order tea. Well, there is something in that, I say to console myself.
There is an even stronger wind blowing outside than before. It tears at the roofs as if it were an anti-Semite, and the roofs, Jews.
But the roofs are of iron, and they are at home.