Then they advised me, that the easiest thing of all was to screen myself with a yellow ticket … And then the fun began! … And even here I’m on a sort of pasture ground; when the time comes, the successful moment arrives— I’ll go away!”
“Where?” asked Jennie with impatience.
“The world is large … And I love life! … There, now, I was the same way in the convent: I lived on and I lived on; sang antiphonies and dulias, until I had rested up, and had finally grown weary of it; and then all at once— hop! and into a cabaret … Wasn’t that some jump?
The same way out of here … I’ll get into a theatre, into a circus, into a corps de ballet … but do you know, Jennechka, I’m drawn to the thieving trade the most, after all … Daring, dangerous, hard, and somehow intoxicating … It’s drawing me! … Don’t you mind that I’m so respectable and modest, and can appear an educated young lady.
I’m entirely, entirely different.”
Her eyes suddenly blazed up, vividly and gaily.
“There’s a devil dwells in me!”
“It’s all very well for you,” pensively and with weariness pronounced Jennie. “You at least desire something, but my soul is some sort of carrion … I’m twenty-five years old, now; but my soul is like that of an old woman, shrivelled up, smelling of the earth … And if I had only lived sensibly! … Ugh! … There was only some sort of slush.”
“Drop it, Jennka; you’re talking foolishly.
You’re smart, you’re original; you have that special power before which men crawl and creep so willingly.
You go away from here, too.
Not with me, of course— I’m always single— but go away all by your own self.”
Jennka shook her head and quietly, without tears, hid her face in her palms.
“No, she responded dully, after a long silence,” no, this won’t work out with me: fate has chewed me all up! … I’m not a human being any more, but some sort of dirty cud … Eh!” she suddenly made a gesture of despair. ’Let’s better drink some cognac, Jennechka,’” she addressed herself, “’and let’s suck the lemon a little! … ’ Brr … what nasty stuff! … And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff?
If you smear a dog’s wool with it, it will fall off … And always, the low-down thing, she’ll take an extra half.
Once I somehow ask her— ’What are you hoarding money for?’
‘Well, I,’ she says, ’am saving it up for a wedding.
What sort,’ she says, ’of joy will it be for my husband, that I’ll offer him up my innocence alone!
I must earn a few hundreds in addition.’
She’s happy! … I have here, Tamara, a little money in. the little box under the mirror; you pass it on to her, please… ”
“And what are you about, you fool; do you want to die, or what?” sharply, with reproach, said Tamara.
“No, I’m saying it just so, if anything happens … Take it, now, take the money!
Maybe they’ll take me off to the hospital … And how do you know what’s going to take place there?
I left myself some small change, if anything happens … And supposing that I wanted to do something to myself in downright earnest, Tamarochka — is it possible that you’d interfere with me?”
Tamara looked at her fixedly, deeply, and calmly.
Jennie’s eyes were sad, and as though vacant.
The living fire had become extinguished in them, and they seemed turbid, just as though faded, with whites like moonstone.
“No,” Tamara said at last, quietly but firmly. “If it was on account of love, I’d interfere; if it was on account of money, I’d talk you out of it: but there are cases where one must not interfere.
I wouldn’t help, of course; but I also wouldn’t seize you and interfere with you.”
At this moment the quick-limbed housekeeper Zociya whirled through the corridor with an outcry:
“Ladies, get dressed! The doctor has arrived … Ladies, get dressed! … Lively, ladies! … ”
“Well, go on, Tamara, go on,” said Jennka tenderly, getting up. “I’ll run into my room for just a minute— I haven’t changed my dress yet, although, to tell the truth, this also is all one.
When they’ll be calling out for me, and I don’t come in time, call out, run in after me.”
And, going out of Tamara’s room, she embraced her by the shoulder, as though by chance, and stroked it tenderly.
Doctor Klimenko— the official city doctor— was preparing in the parlor everything indispensable for an nspection— vaseline, a solution of sublimate, and other things— and was placing them on a separate little table.
Here also were arranged for him the white blanks of the girls, replacing their passports, as well as a general alphabetical list.
The girls, dressed only in their chemises, stockings, and slippers, were standing and sitting at a distance.
Nearer the table was standing the proprietress herself— Anna Markovna— while a little behind her were Emma Edwardovna and Zociya.
The doctor— aged, disheartened, slovenly; a man indifferent to everything— put the pince-nez crookedly upon his nose, looked at the list, and called out:
“Alexandra Budzinskaya! … ”
The frowning, little, pug-nosed Nina stepped out.
Preserving on her face an angry expression, and breathing heavily from shame, from the consciousness of her own awkwardness, and from the exertions, she clumsily climbed up on the table.
The doctor, squinting through his pince-nez and dropping it every minute, carried out the inspection.
“Go ahead! … You’re sound.”
And on the reverse side of the blank he marked off:
“Twenty-eighth of August. Sound” and put down a curly-cue.
And when he had not even finished writing called out:
“Voshchenkova, Irene! … ”
Now it was the turn of Liubka.
She, during the past month and a half of comparative freedom, had had time to grow unaccustomed to the inspections of every week; and when the doctor turned up the chemise over her breast, she suddenly turned as red as only very bashful women can— even with her back and breast.