Her lips twitched spasmodically. She filled a cup and offered it to him.
"Drink!"
He shook his head in declination.
"You little coward!" she laughed quietly. "Life is hard for you—I understand. But why you live I don't understand. Why? Tell me."
"Just so," answered Yevsey gloomily. "I live. What else is one to do?"
Rayisa looked at him, and said tenderly:
"I think you are going to choke yourself."
Yevsey was aggrieved and sighed. He settled himself more firmly in his chair.
Rayisa paced through the room, stepping lazily and inaudibly. She stopped before a mirror, and looked at her face long without winking. She felt her full white neck with her hands, her shoulders quivered, her hands dropped heavily, and she began again to pace the room, her hips moving up and down. She hummed without opening her mouth. Her voice was stifled like the groan of one who suffers from toothache.
A lamp covered with a green shade was burning on the table. Through the window the round disk of the moon could be seen in the vacant heavens. The moon, too, looked green, as it hung there motionless like the shadows in the room, and it augured ill.