doctor?"

Jennka suddenly turned away from her, pressed her face against the
angle of the window frame and suddenly burst into bitter, searing
tears--the tears of wrath and vengefulness--and at the same time she
spoke, gasping and quivering:

"Because ... because ... Because God has sent me especial luck: I am
sick there where, in all probability, no doctor can see. And ours,
besides that, is old and stupid..."

And suddenly, with some unusual effort of the will Jennka stopped her
tears just as unexpectedly as she had started crying.

"Come to me, Tamarochka," she said. "Of course, you won't chatter too
much?"

"Of course not."

And they returned into Jennka's room, both of them calm and restrained.

Simeon walked into the room. He, contrary to his usual brazenness,
always bore himself with a shade of respect toward Jennka. Simeon said:

"Well, now, Jennechka, their Excellency has come to Vanda. Allow her to
go away for ten minutes."

Vanda, a blue-eyed, light blonde, with a large red mouth, with the
typical face of a Lithuanian, looked imploringly at Jennka. If Jennka
had said "No" she would have remained in the room, but Jennka did not
say anything and even shut her eyes deliberately. Vanda obediently went
out of the room.

This general came accurately twice a month, every two weeks (just as to
Zoe, another girl, came daily another honoured guest, nicknamed the
Director in the house).

Jennka suddenly threw the old, tattered book behind her. Her brown eyes
flared up with a real golden fire.

"You're wrong in despising this general," said she. "I've known worse
Ethiopians. I had a certain guest once--a real blockhead. He couldn't
make love to me otherwise than ... otherwise than ... well, let's say
it plainly: he pricked me with pins in the breast ... While in Vilno a
Polish Catholic priest used to come to me. He would dress me all in
white, compel me to powder myself, lay me down on the bed. He'd light
three candles near me. And then, when I seemed to him altogether like a
dead woman, he'd throw himself upon me."

Little White Manka suddenly exclaimed:

"It's the truth you're telling, Jennka! I had a certain old bugger,
too. He made me pretend all the time that I was an innocent girl, so's
I'd cry and scream. But, Jennechka, though you're the smartest one of
us, yet I'll bet you won't guess who he was ..."

"The warden of a prison?"

"A fire chief."

Suddenly Katie burst into laughter in her bas