The modest, quiet Tamara was the last to walk in, with her shy and depraved smile of a Monna Lisa.
In the end, almost the entire personnel of the establishment gathered in the cabinet.
Rovinskaya no longer risked asking “How did you come to this life?”
But it must be said, that the inmates of the house met her with an outward hospitality.
Ellena Victorovna asked them to sing their usual canonical songs, and they willingly sang:
Monday now is come again, They’re supposed to get me out; Doctor Krassov won’t let me out, Well, the devil take him then.
And further:
Poor little, poor little, poor little me, The public house is closed, My head’s aching me…
The love of a loafer Is spice, is spice; But the prostitute Is as cold as ice.
Ha-ha-ha!
They came together Matched as well as might be, She is a prostitute, A pickpocket he.
Ha-ha-ha!
Now morning has come, He is planning a theft; While she lies in her bed And laughs like she’s daft.
Ha-ha-ha!
Comes morning, the laddie Is led to the pen; But for the prostitute His pals await then.
Ha-ha-ha! … [12]
And still further a convict song:
I’m a ruined laddie, Ruined for alway; While year after year The days go away.
And also:
Don’t you cry, my Mary, You’ll belong to me; When I’ve served the army I will marry thee.
But here suddenly, to the general amazement, the stout Kitty, usually taciturn, burst into laughter.
She was a native of Odessa.
“Let me sing one song, too.
It’s sung by thieves and badger queens in the drink shops on our Moldavanka and Peresip.”
And in a horrible bass, in a rusty and unyielding voice, she began to sing, making the most incongruous gestures, but, evidently, imitating some cabaret cantatrice of the third calibre that she had sometime seen:
“Ah, I’ll go to Dukovka, Sit down at the table, Now I throw my hat off, Toss it under table.
Then I athk my dearie, ‘What will you drink, sweet?’
But all the answer that she makes: ‘My head aches fit to split.’
’I ain’t a-athking you What your ache may be, But I am a-athking you What your drink may be:
Will it be beer, or for wine shall I call, Or for violet wine, or nothing else at all?’”
And all would have turned out well, if suddenly Little White Manka, in only her chemise and in white lace drawers, had not burst into the cabinet.
Some merchant, who the night before had arranged a paradisaical night, was carousing with her, and the ill-fated Benedictine, which always acted upon the girl with the rapidity of dynamite, had brought her into the usual quarrelsome condition.
She was no longer
“Little Manka” and
“Little White Manka,” but she was
“Manka the Scandaliste.”
Having run into the cabinet, she suddenly, from unexpectedness, fell down on the floor, and, lying on her back, burst into such sincere laughter that all the rest burst out laughing as well.
Yes.
But this laughter was not prolonged … Manka suddenly sat up on the floor and began to shout:
“Hurrah! new wenches have joined our place!”
This was altogether an unexpected thing.
The baroness did a still greater tactlessness.
She said:
“I am a patroness of a convent for fallen girls, and therefore, as a part of my duty, I must gather information about you.”
But here Jennka instantly flared up:
“Get out of here right away, you old fool!
You rag!
You floor mop! ..
Your Magdalene asylums— they’re worse than a prison.
Your secretaries use us, like dogs carrion.