But what are you afraid of?
You must be unhappy in some way.
It makes me sad to look at you.”
“I’m not afraid of anyone,” she replied, with a note of irritation in her voice.
“But you said just now ‘she’ll beat me’”
“Let her beat me!” she answered, and her eyes flashed.
“Let her, let her!” she repeated bitterly, and her upper lip quivered and was lifted disdainfully.
At last we reached Vassilyevsky Island.
She stopped the droshky at the beginning of Sixth Street, and jumped off, looking anxiously round.
“Drive away! I’ll come, I’ll come,” she repeated, terribly uneasy, imploring me not to follow her.
“Get on, make haste, make haste!”
I drove on.
But after driving a few yards further along the embankment I dismissed the cab, and going back to Sixth Street ran quickly across the road.
I caught sight of her; she had not got far away yet, though she was walking quickly, and continually looking about her. She even stopped once or twice to look more carefully whether I were following her or not.
But I hid in a handy gateway, and she did not see me.
She walked on. I followed her, keeping on the other side of the street.
My curiosity was roused to the utmost.
Though I did not intend to follow her in, I felt I must find which house she lived in, to be ready in case of emergency.
I was overcome by a strange, oppressive sensation, not unlike the impression her grandfather had made on me when Azorka died in the restaurant.
Chapter IV
WE walked a long way, as far as Little Avenue.
She was almost running. At last she went into a little shop.
I stood still and waited.
“Surely she doesn’t live at the shop,” I thought.
She did in fact come out a minute later, but without the books.
Instead of the books she had an earthenware cup in her hand.
Going on a little further she went in at the gateway of an unattractivelooking house.
It was an old stone house of two storeys, painted a dirtyyellow colour, and not large.
In one of the three windows on the ground floor there was a miniature red coffin – as a sign that a working coffinmaker lived there.
The windows of the upper storey were extremely small and perfectly square with dingygreen broken panes, through which I caught a glimpse of pink cotton curtains.
I crossed the road, went up to the house, and read on an iron plate over the gate, “Mme. Bubnov.”
But I had hardly deciphered the inscription when suddenly I heard a piercing female scream, followed by shouts of abuse in Mme. Bubnov’s yard.
I peeped through the gate. On the wooden steps of the house stood a stout woman, dressed like a working woman with a kerchief on her head, and a green shawl.
Her face was of a revolting purplish colour. Her little, puffy, bloodshot eves were gleaming with spite.
It was evident that she was not sober, though it was so early in the day.
She was shrieking at poor Elena, who stood petrified. before her with the cup in her hand.
A dishevelled female, painted and rouged, peeped from the stairs behind the purplefaced woman.
A little later a door opened on the area steps leading to the basement, and a poorly dressed, middleaged woman of modest and decent appearance came out on the steps, probably attracted by the shouting.
The other inhabitants of the basement, a decrepitlooking old man and a girl, looked out from the halfopened door.
A big, hulking peasant, probably the porter, stood still in the middle of the yard with the broom in his hand, looking lazily at the scene.
“Ah, you damned slut, you bloodsucker, you louse!” squealed the woman, letting out at one breath all her store of abuse, for the most part without commas or stops, but with a sort of gasp. So this is how you repay, me for my care of you, you ragged wench.
She was just sent for some cucumbers and off she slipped.
My heart told me she’d slip off when I sent her out!
My heart ached it did!
Only last night I all but pulled her hair out for it, and here she runs off again today.
And where have you to go, you trollop?
Where have you to go to? Who do you go to, you damned mummy, you staring viper, you poisonous vermin, who, who is it?
Speak, you rotten scum, or I’ll choke you where you stand!”
And the infuriated woman flew at the poor girl, but, seeing the woman looking at her from the basement steps, she suddenly checked herself and, addressing her, squealed more shrilly than ever, waving her arms as though calling her to witness the monstrous crimes of her luckless victim.
“Her mother’s hopped the twig!