Women crept out from the hidden places of the house and gathered closely round the seller. I recognized her at once; it was the laundress, Natalia. I jumped down from the roof, but she, having given the petticoat to the first bidder, had already quietly left the yard.
"How do you do?" I greeted her joyfully as I caught her at the gate.
"What next, I wonder?" she exclaimed, glancing at me askance, and then she suddenly stood still, crying angrily: "God save us! What are you doing here?"
Her terrified exclamation touched and confused me. I realized that she was afraid for me; terror and amazement were shown so plainly in her intelligent face. I soon explained to her that I was not living in that street, but only went there sometimes to see what there was to see.
"See?" she cried angrily and derisively. "What sort of a place is this that you should want to see it? It's the women you 're after."
Her face was wrinkled, dark shadows lay under her eyes, and her lips drooped feebly.
Standing at the door of a tavern she said:
"Come in; I am going to have some tea! You are well-dressed, not like they dress here, yet I cannot believe what you say."
But in the tavern she seemed to believe me, and as she poured out tea, she began to tell me how she had only awakened from sleep an hour ago, and had not had anything to eat or drink yet.
"And when I went to bed last night I was as drunk as drunk. I can't even remember where I had the drink, or with whom."