s:

"Well, now, I had a certain teacher. He taught some kind of arithmetic,
I disremember which. He always made me believe, that I was the man, and
he the woman, and that I should do it to him ... by force ... And what
a fool! Just imagine, girls, he'd yell all the time: 'I'm your woman!
I'm all yours! Take me! Take me!'"

"Loony!" said the blue-eyed, spry Verka in a positive and unexpectedly
contralto voice: "Loony."

"No, why?" suddenly retorted the kindly and modest Tamara. "Not crazy
at all, but simply, like all men, a libertine. At home it's tiresome
for him, while here for his money he can receive whatever pleasure he
desires. That's plain, it seems?"

Jennka, who had been silent up to now, suddenly, with one quick
movement sat up in bed.

"You're all fools!" she cried. "Why do you forgive them all this?
Before I used to be foolish myself, too, but now I compel them to walk
before me on all fours, compel them to kiss my soles, and they do this
with delight ... You all know, girlies, that I don't love money, but I
pluck the men in whatever way I can. They, the nasty beasts, present me
with the portraits of their wives, brides, mothers, daughters ...
However, you've seen, I think, the photographs in our water-closet? But
now, just think of it, my children ... A woman loves only once, but for
always, while a man loves like a he-greyhound... That he's unfaithful
is nothing; but he never has even the commonest feeling of gratitude
left either for the old, or the new, mistress. I've heard it said, that
now there are many clean boys among the young people. I believe this,
though I haven't seen, haven't met them, myself. But all those I have
seen are all vagabonds, nasty brutes and skunks. Not so long ago I read
some novel of our miserable life. It's almost the same thing as I'm
telling you now."

Vanda came back. She slowly, carefully, sat down on the edge of
Jennka's bed; there, where the shadow of the lamp fell. Out of that
deep, though deformed psychical delicacy, which is peculiar to people
sentenced to death, prisoners at hard labour, and prostitutes, none had
the courage to ask her how she had passed this hour and a half.
Suddenly she threw upon the table twenty-five roubles and said:

"Bring me white wine and a watermelon."

And, burying her face in her arms, which had sunk on the table, she
began to sob inaudibly. And again no one took the liberty of putting
any question to her. Only Jennka grew pale fr