and then began
to lie desperately and with inspiration. He said that the police were
watching him; that he could not get by the jail, and, perhaps, even
hard labour and the gallows; that it was necessary for him to disappear
abroad for several months. But mainly, what he persisted in especially
strongly, was some tremendous fantastic business, in which he stood to
make several hundred thousands of roubles. The sempstress believed and
became alarmed with that disinterested, womanly, almost holy alarm, in
which, with every woman, there is so much of something maternal. It was
not at all difficult now to convince her that for Horizon to travel
together with her presented a great danger for him; and that it would
be better for her to remain here and to bide the time until the affairs
of her lover would adjust themselves fortuitously. After that to talk
her into hiding, as in the most trustworthy retreat, in a brothel,
where she would be in full safety from the police and the detectives,
was a mere nothing. One morning Horizon ordered her to dress a little
better, curl her hair, powder herself, put a little rouge on her
cheeks, and carried her off to a den, to his acquaintance. The girl
made a favourable impression there, and that same day her passport was
changed by the police to a so-called yellow ticket. Having parted with
her, after long embraces and tears, Horizon went into the room of the
proprietress and received his payment, fifty roubles (although he had
asked for two hundred). But he did not grieve especially over the low
price; the main thing was, that he had found his calling at last, all
by himself, and had laid the cornerstone of his future welfare.

Of course, the woman sold by him just remained forever so in the
tenacious hands of the brothel. Horizon forgot her so thoroughly that
after only a year he could not even recall her face. But who knows ...
perhaps he merely pretended?

Now he was one of the chief speculators in the body of woman in all the
south of Russia. He had transactions with Constantinople and with
Argentine; he transported, in whole parties, girls from the brothels of
Odessa into Kiev; those from Kiev he brought over into Kharkov; and
those from Kharkov into Odessa. He it was also who stuck away over
second rate capital cities, and those districts which were somewhat
richer, the goods which had been rejected or had grown too noticeable
in the big cities. He had struck up an enormous cliente