Simeon came with a tray and began with an accustomed rapidity to uncork the bottles.
Following him came Zociya, the housekeeper.
“There, now, how well you’ve made yourself at home here.
Here’s to your lawful marriage!” she congratulated them.
“Daddy, treat the little housekeeper with beer,” begged Manka. “Drink, housekeeper dear.”
“Well, in that case here’s to your health, mister.
Somehow, your face seems kind of familiar to me?”
The German drank his beer, sucking and licking his moustache, and impatiently waited for the housekeeper to go away.
But she, having put down her glass and thanked him, said:
“Let me get the money coming from you, mister.
As much as is coming for the beer and the time.
That’s both better for you and more convenient for us.”
The demand for the money went against the grain of the teacher, because it completely destroyed the sentimental part of his intentions.
He became angry:
“What sort of boorishness is this, anyway!
It doesn’t look as if I were preparing to run away from here.
And besides, can’t you discriminate between people at all?
You can see that a man of respectability, in a uniform, has come to you, and not some tramp.
What sort of importunity is this!”
The housekeeper gave in a little.
“Now, don’t get offended, mister.
Of course, you’ll pay the young lady yourself for the visit.
I don’t think you will do her any wrong, she’s a fine girl among us.
But I must trouble you to pay for the beer and lemonade.
I, too, have to give an account to the proprietress.
Two bottles at fifty is a rouble and the lemonade thirty— a rouble thirty.”
“Good Lord, a bottle of beer fifty kopecks!” the German waxed indignant. “Why, I will get it in any beer-shop for twelve kopecks.”
“Well, then, go to a beer-shop if it’s cheaper there,” Zociya became offended. “But if you’ve come to a respectable establishment, the regular price is half a rouble.
We don’t take anything extra.
There, that’s better.
Twenty kopecks change coming to you?”
“Yes, change, without fail,” firmly emphasized the German teacher. “And I would request of you that nobody else should enter.”
“No, no, no, what are you saying,” Zociya began to bustle near the door. “Dispose yourself as you please, to your heart’s content.
A pleasant appetite to you.”
Manka locked the door on a hook after her and sat down on the German’s knee, embracing him with her bare arm.
“Are you here long?” he asked, sipping his beer.
He felt dimly that that imitation of love which must immediately take place demanded some sort of psychic propinquity, a more intimate acquaintance, and on that account, despite his impatience, began the usual conversation, which is carried on by almost all men— when alone with prostitutes, and which compels the latter to lie almost mechanically, to lie without mortification, enthusiasm or malice, according to a single, very ancient stencil.
“Not long, only the third month.”
“And how old are you?”
“Sixteen,” fibbed Little Manka, taking five years off her age.
“O, such a young one!” the German wondered, and began, bending down and grunting, to take off his boots. “Then how did you get here?”
“Well, a certain officer deprived me of my innocence there… near his birthplace.
And it’s terrible how strict my mamma is.
If she was to find out, she’d strangle me with her own hands.
Well, so then I ran away from home and got in here… ”
“And did you love that same officer, the one who was the first one, now?”
“If I hadn’t loved him, I wouldn’t have gone to him.
He promised to marry me, the scoundrel, but then managed to get what he was after, and abandoned me.”
“Well, and were you ashamed the first time?”
“Of course, you’d be ashamed… How do you like it, daddy, with light or without light?