does the same. When
we have saved the ten thousand roubles we need, we will open our own
beer-hall, and, if God will bless us, then we shall allow ourselves the
luxury of having children. Two children. A boy and a girl."

"But, listen to me, mein Fraulein!" Rovinskaya was amazed. "You are
young, handsome, know two languages ..."

"Three, madam," proudly put in the German. "I know Esthonian as well. I
finished the municipal school and three classes of high school."

"Well, then, you see, you see ..." Rovinskaya became heated. "With such
an education you could always find a place with everything found, and
about thirty roubles. Well, in the capacity of a housekeeper, bonne,
senior clerk in a good store, a cashier, let's say ... And if your
future bridegroom ... Fritz ..."

"Hans, madam ..."

"If Hans proved to be an industrious and thrifty man, then it would not
be at all hard for you to get up on your feet altogether, after three
or four years. What do you think?"

"Ah, madam, you are a little mistaken. You have overlooked that, in the
very best of positions, I, even denying myself in everything, will not
be able to put aside more than fifteen, twenty roubles a month; whereas
here, with a prudent economy, I gain up to a hundred roubles and at
once carry them away with a book into the savings bank. And besides
that, just imagine, gnadige Frau, what a humiliating position to be the
servant in a house! Always to depend on the caprice or the disposition
of the spirits of the masters! And the master always pesters you with
foolishness. Pfui! .. And the mistress is jealous, picks, and scolds."

"No ... I don't understand ..." meditatively drawled Rovinskaya,
without looking the German in the eyes, but casting hers on the floor.
"I've heard a great deal of your life here, in these ... what do you
call them? .. these houses. They say it is something horrible. That
you're forced to love the most repulsive, old and hideous men, that you
are plucked and exploited in the most cruel manner ..."

"Oh, never, madam ... Each one of us has an account book, wherein is
written accurately the income and expense. During last month I earned a
little more than five hundred roubles. As always, two-thirds went to
the proprietress for board, quarters, fuel, light, linen ... There
remains to me more than a hundred and fifty, it is not so? Fifty I
spent on costumes and all sorts of trifles. A hundred I save. What
exploitation is it, then,