There’s lots of them walking around Kashtanovaya Street.
There, these he-dogs can never get enough!”
“Well, you old barque!
Lively and don’t growl!” Lichonin shouted after her. “Or else, like your friend, the student Triassov, I’ll take and lock you up in the dressing room for twenty-four hours!”
Alexandra went away, and for a long time her aged, flapping steps and indistinct muttering could be heard in the corridor.
She was inclined, in her austere, grumbling kindliness, to forgive a great deal to the studying youths, whom she had served for nigh unto forty years.
She forgave drunkenness, card playing, scandals, loud singing, debts; but, alas! she was a virgin, and there was only one thing her continent soul could not abide— libertinage.
Chapter 13
“And that’s splendid … And fine and charming,” Lichonin was saying, bustling about the lame table and without need shifting the tea things from one place to another. “For a long time, like an old crocodile, I haven’t drunk tea as it should be drunk, in a Christian manner, in a domestic setting.
Sit down, Liuba, sit down, my dear, right here on the divan, and keep house.
Vodka, in all probability, you don’t drink of a morning, but I, with your permission, will drink some … This braces up the nerves right off.
Make mine a little stronger, please, with a piece of lemon.
Ah, what can taste better than a glass of hot tea, poured out by charming feminine hands?”
Liubka listened to his chatter, a trifle too noisy to seem fully natural; and her smile, in the beginning mistrusting, wary, was softening and brightening.
But she did not get on with the tea especially well.
At home, in the backwoods village, where this beverage was still held a rarity, the dainty luxury of well-to-do families, to be brewed only for honored guests and on great holidays— there over the pouring of the tea officiated the eldest man of the family.
Later, when Liubka served with “all found” in the little provincial capital city, in the beginning at a priest’s, and later with an insurance agent (who had been the first to put her on the road of prostitution)— she was usually left some strained, tepid tea, which had already been drunk off, with a bit of gnawn sugar, by the mistress herself— the thin, jaundiced, malicious wife of the priest; or the wife of the agent, a fat, old, wrinkled, malignant, greasy, jealous and stingy common woman.
Therefore, the simple business of preparing the tea was now as difficult for her as it is difficult for all of us in childhood to distinguish the left hand from the right, or to tie a rope in a small noose.
The bustling Lichonin only hindered her and threw her into confusion.
“My dear, the art of brewing tea is a great art.
It ought to be studied at Moscow.
At first a dry teapot is slightly warmed up.
Then the tea is put into it and is quickly scalded with boiling water.
The first liquid must at once be poured off into the slop-bowl— the tea thus becomes purer and more aromatic; and by the way, it’s also known that Chinamen are pagans and prepare their herb very filthily.
After that the tea-pot must be filled anew, up to a quarter of its volume; left on the tray, covered over with a towel and kept so for three and a half minutes.
Afterwards pour in more boiling water almost up to the top, cover it again, let it stay just a bit, and you have ready, my dear, a divine beverage; fragrant, refreshing, and strengthening.”
The homely, but pleasant-looking face of Liubka, all spotted from freckles, like a cuckoo’s egg, lengthened and paled a little.
“Well, for God’s sake, don’t you be angry at me … You’re called Vassil Vassilich, isn’t that so?
Don’t get angry, darling Vassil Vassilich.
Really, now, I’ll learn fast, I’m quick.
And why do you say you and you[19] to me all the time?
It seems that we aren’t strangers now?”
She looked at him kindly.
And truly, she had this morning, for the first time in all her brief but distorted life, given her body to a man— even though without enjoyment but more out of gratitude and pity, yet voluntarily— not for money, not under compulsion, not under threat of dismissal and scandal.
And her feminine heart, always unwithering, always drawn to love, like a sunflower to the sun, was at this moment pure and inclined to tenderness.
But Lichonin suddenly felt a prickling, shameful awkwardness and something inimical toward this woman, yesterday unknown to him, now— his chance mistress.
“The charms of the family hearth have begun,” he thought involuntarily; still, he got up from his chair, walked up to Liubka, and having taken her by the hand, drew her to him and patted her on the head.
“My dear, my darling sister,” he said touchingly and falsely; “that which has happened to-day must never more be repeated.
In everything only I alone am guilty, and, if you desire, I am ready to beg forgiveness of you on my knees.
Understand— oh, understand, that all this came about against my will, somehow elementally, suddenly, unexpectedly.
And I myself didn’t think that it would be like that!
You understand, for a very long time … I have not known woman intimately … A repulsive, unbridled beast awoke within me … and … But, Lord, is my fault so great, then?
Holy people, anchorites, recluses, ascetics, stylites, hermits in deserts, are no match for me in fortitude of spirit— yet even they fell in the struggle with the temptation of the diabolical flesh.
But then, I swear by whatever you wish, that this won’t be repeated any more … Isn’t that so?”
Liubka was stubbornly trying to pull his hand away from hers.
Her lips had become a little stuck out and the lowered lids began to wink frequently.
“Ye-es,” she drawled, like a child that stubbornly refuses to “make up.” “Well, I can see that I don’t please you.
Well, then, you’d best tell me so straight and give me a little for a cab, and some more, now; as much as you want … The money for the night is paid anyway, and I only have to ride up to … there.”
Lichonin seized his hair, flung himself about the room and began to declaim:
“Ah, not that, not that, not that!