madam, I ask you? And if I do not like a man
at all--true, there are some who are exceedingly nasty--I can always
say I am sick, and instead of me will go one of the newest girls ..."

"But then ... pardon me, I do not know your name ..."

"Elsa."

"They say, that you're treated very roughly ... beaten at times ...
compelled to do that which you don't want to and which is repulsive to
you?"

"Never, madam!" dropped Elsa haughtily. "We all live here as a friendly
family of our own. We are all natives of the same land or relatives,
and God grant that many should live so in their own families as we live
here. True, on Yamskaya Street there happen various scandals and fights
and misunderstandings. But that's there ... in these ... in the rouble
establishments. The Russian girls drink a lot and always have one
lover. And they do not think at all of their future."

"You are prudent, Elsa," said Rovinskaya in an oppressed tone. "All
this is well. But, what of the chance disease? Infection? Why, that is
death? And how can you guess?"

"And again--no, madam. I won't let a man into my bed before I make a
detailed medical inspection of him ... I am guaranteed, at the least,
against seventy-five per cent."

"The devil!" suddenly exclaimed Rovinskaya with heat and hit the table
with her fist. "But, then, what of your Albert ..."

"Hans," the German corrected her meekly.

"Pardon me ... Your Hans surely does not rejoice greatly over the fact
that you are living here, and that you betray him every day?"

Elsa looked at her with sincere, lively amazement.

"But gnadige Frau ... I have never yet betrayed him! It is other lost
wenches, especially Russian, who have lovers for themselves, on whom
they spend their hard-earned money. But that I should ever let myself
go as far as that? Pfui!"

"A greater fall I have not imagined!" said Rovinskaya loudly and with
aversion, getting up. "Pay gentlemen, and let's go on from here."

When they had gone out into the street, Volodya took her arm and said
in an imploring voice:

"For God's sake, isn't one experiment enough for you?"

"Oh, what vulgarity! What vulgarity!"

"That's why I'm saying, let's drop this experiment."

"No, in any case I am going through with it to the finish. Show me
something simpler, more of the medium."

Volodya Chaplinsky, who was all the time in a torment over Ellena
Victorovna, offered the most likely thing--to drop into the
establishment of Anna