“You are useful here, Mariana. Don’t leave us yet, wait a little longer. What is it?” Solomin asked of Tatiana who was just coming in.
“Some sort of female is asking for Alexai Dmitritch,” Tatiana replied, laughing and gesticulating with her hands. “I said that there was no such person living here, that we did not know him at all, when she—”
“Who is she?”
“Why the female of course. She wrote her name on this piece of paper and asked me to bring it here and let her in, saying that if Alexai Dmitritch was really not at home, she could wait for him.”
On the paper was written in large letters “Mashurina.”
“Show her in,” Solomin said. “You don’t mind my asking her in here, Mariana, do you? She is also one of us.”
“Not at all.”
A few moments later Mashurina appeared in the doorway, in the same dress in which we saw her at the beginning of the first chapter.
XXXI
“Is Nejdanov not at home?” she asked, then catching sight of Solomin, came up to him and extended her hand.