"Where are you going, Mr. Officer! Please come in."
Kuzma Vassilyevitch hesitated a little; he turned back, however.
VII
This new acquaintance, whom we will call Emilie, led him through a dark, damp little lobby into a fairly large but low-pitched and untidy room with a huge cupboard against the further wall and a sofa covered with American leather; above the doors and between the windows hung three portraits in oils with the paint peeling off, two representing bishops in clerical caps and one a Turk in a turban; cardboard boxes were lying about in the corners; there were chairs of different sorts and a crooked legged card table on which a man's cap was lying beside an unfinished glass of kvass. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was followed into the room by the old woman in the red dress, whom he had noticed at the gate, and who turned out to be a very unprepossessing Jewess with sullen pig-like eyes and a grey moustache over her puffy upper lip. Emilie indicated her to Kuzma Vassilyevitch and said:
"This is my aunt, Madame Fritsche."
Kuzma Vassilyevitch was a little surprised but thought it his duty to introduce himself. Madame Fritsche looked at him from under her brows, made no response, but asked her niece in Russian whether she would like some tea.
"Ah, yes, tea!" answered Emilie. "You will have some tea, won't you, Mr. Officer? Yes, auntie, give us some tea! But why are you standing, Mr. Officer? Sit down! Oh, how ceremonious you are! Let me take off my fichu."
When Emilie talked she continually turned her head from one side to another and jerked her shoulders; birds make similar movements when they sit on a bare branch with sunshine all round them.
Kuzma Vassilyevitch sank into a chair and assuming a becoming air of dignity, that is, leaning on his cutlass and fixing his eyes on the floor, he began to speak about the theft. But Emilie at once interrupted him.
"Don't trouble yourself, it's all right. Auntie has just told me that the principal things have been found." (Madame Fritsche mumbled something to herself and went out of the room.) "And there was no need to go to the police at all; but I can't control myself because I am so ... You don't understand German? ... So quick, immer so rasch! But I think no more about it ... aber auch gar nicht!"